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Comment by orsenthil | Hacker News Reader

Genuine question, how did these companies, Shein and Temu rise so fast? They need sophisticated software, infrastructure, and then logistics to pull these off, and they seem to have done it within 1-2 years. Does anyone know or can point to articles on how these companies pulled these off?

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Just because they're new to the US doesn't mean they're new to the game. The e-commerce market in China is ferociously competitive and both companies cut their logistics teeth there.

Temu is an offshoot of Pinduoduo, a massive Chinese retailer that was founded in 2015.

Shein was founded in 2008 and started retail in Europe in the early 2010s.

Yep! And not just China - all over Asia.

You have Mercari (Japan), Rakuten (pan-Asia), Coupang (Korea), Shoppee (ASEAN), Lazada (ASEAN), Flipkart (India), Myntra (India), Daraz (Pakistan), Haraj (Gulf states), etc on along with known players like Amazon.

E-commerce is way more cutting edge in Asia than in North America tbh

Southern Asia + Eastern Asia + Southeastern Asia = ~50% of the world's population

Spread across a tremendously diverse set of cultures and languages, but a much bigger market for companies that grow there.

> Spread across a tremendously diverse set of cultures and languages, but a much bigger market for companies that grow there.

It's more so the fact that Asian countries still have low margins manufacturers with little to no overhead.

I can open a garments or shirt factory with minimal overhead anywhere in Asia, but if I tried opening a Maquiladora here in the US, I'd be facing a 10-20 year federal sentence like those guys who brought Thais illegally to the Garment District in LA in the 90s.

All I need is 10 sewing machines, 10 semi-skilled laborers, some consistent electricity, and a bit of cash to pay off the local labor inspector. I def can't do that here in the US anymore.

Maybe it was an exaggeration, but in the 1980's I heard that Hong Kong when factory owners kept full accounting for A/C costs but wages got lumped under "other expenses"?

Went to Bali many years ago. GoJek App - you could get almost anything done on it. Order in food, get your medicines, go book a taxi - you name it, it did it. The convenience was fantastic. While everyone was all up in arms about Uber, this was next level. Probably not super slick to the nth degree, but hellishly functional...

> E-commerce is way more cutting edge in Asia than in North America tbh

The Western media bubble is wilfully ignorant, I'd guess mostly out of incompetence rather than malice.

I'm afraid we'll be schooled in the future, hope it doesn't hurt too much.

Unlimited Ad budget. Temu is not even a year old around here, but it had ads everywhere at the same time. TV, twitch, youtube, ..

Shein was kinda the same but with influencers, literally contracting any influencer no matter how small and 'gifting' them with 'shopping hauls'

Ad budget will answer after they have everything else in place. How did they get here so quickly? Almost impossible for any startup or new player.

They were a billion dollar company in China by 2019 alone. PDD's entry into the US was later in the company's lifecycle

One way is via big ad spend. Shein and Temu are always pinned to the top of the app stores.

Is the software that sophisticated? And are the logistics new? Or are they building something that has already been done multiple times? If the suppliers are the same and they are just marketplace, it might only become marketing effort.

Just like Twitter/X - you don't need 85% of workforce leeching off resources in western companies. Turns out if you cut woke, diversity and sorts from your corporate documents (or rather do not introduce it), lots can be done in short period of time.

Not saying working in chinese companies is great - 996 is no joke, but results are speaking out for itself.

Indeed:

X becoming a 'ghost town' of bots as AI-generated spam content floods internet

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39535310

As results go that's one of the greatest feats of speedrunning faceplanting a richly inhabited site in recent times.

Not sure what is the point of your comment, you likely missing the point, perhaps involuntarily.

Every platform out there is suffering from AI generated "content", that's not news, and X is not any different. It has nothing to do with laying off 85% of useless staff.

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