Temu believes that they can take on Australian retailers especially the likes of Bunnings, Big W, Kmart and Target in the value market despite questions being raised about the products the Company is shipping into Australia.

The Company is moving to ramp up its roster of locally based suppliers in an effort to shorten delivery times, as it ramps up pressure on retail competitors.

ChannelNews understands that they are already talking to local suppliers in an effort to move to same day delivery, with the Chinese online group believed to “happy” to offer “significantly better margins” than what high street retailers are demanding.

In the UK this has already happened with the Chinese ecommerce giant’s “local” initiative program now allowing customers to buy items from UK-based sellers with goods such as bulky TV’s appliances and gardening and handy man equipment arriving the same day.

The “local” products are mostly bulky goods, such as furniture, tents, winter coats and kitchen appliances that would be uneconomical to ship from China.

ChannelNews understands that Australian distributors of house brand products have been approached to sell via Temu.

The Temu app is used regularly by tens of millions of people every day with couriers in Australia telling ChannelNews that on some days Temu and Amazon products make up the bulk of their deliveries.

Currently Temu is facing legal action from the European Commission following fears the platform is failing to stop the sale of illegal goods.

A formal investigation was launched last month over concerns the retailer, which was hit with legal action over “manipulative practices” in May, did not have sufficiently robust systems to prevent “previously suspended rogue traders” reappearing on the platform, with some goods returning within days of being taken down.

In some European Countries Temu has become a key online shipper of goods causing concern for value retailers.

France has emerged as Temu’s second-largest European market with 12 million monthly consignees, followed by Germany, the e-commerce platform revealed on Monday.

At the end of October, Philippe Wahl, CEO of La Poste, stated that e-tailers like Temu and Shein now account for 22% of the group’s parcel deliveries, surpassing Amazon, which accounted for 21%, and marking a significant increase from less than 5% five years ago.

From April to October, Temu recorded an average of 93.7 million monthly consignees across the European Union. Its largest markets include Germany, with 16.3 million consignees, followed by France (12 million), Italy (10 million), Poland (9.6 million), and Spain (9.4 million).