The Chinese e-commerce sites ship the equivalent of 88 Boeing 777 freighters of cargo worldwide every day. The vast volume has sent air freight rates through the roof, but the two companies have been willing to subsidize fast shipping as they grow globally — for now.ine months ago, Niall van de Wouw, who tracks air freight shipments across the globe for logistics analytics company Xeneta, had never heard of Temu.
At the time, the company was only a year and a half old. “This is very unusual,” he said. “I cannot recall one or two companies producing so much demand. That’s the scary bit about exponential growth.” For now, Shein and Temu provide free shipping for orders over a certain size, seemingly willing to absorb the higher costs as a shortcut to accelerated growth in the U.S.
“You get a full plane to the U.S. and a deadhead on the way back,” he said, using an aviation industry term for a near-empty or fully empty plane. “The backhaul becomes a bloodbath.”A big TV advertising blitz in the U.S. has fueled Temu’s growth, including ads during the 2023 and 2024 Super Bowls that encouraged Americans to “shop like a billionaire.”Temu package in apartment building lobby, Temu, which is owned by Chinese parent company PDD Holdings, shopping app Temu.com, Queens, New York.