Ordering from Temu just changed — here's what shoppers should know

The numbers surprised our testing team. On paper, Temu's headline prices sit well below the big high-street retailers, but once you factor in bundled delivery and the free items that quietly inflate a subtotal, the gap narrows more than most shoppers expect.

We built the same basket across four stores and ran it three times a week for three weeks. The pattern was consistent: the biggest savings appeared only when the cart crossed a specific threshold, a detail the app does not surface until checkout.

What actually changed

Two things. The first is the free-shipping floor, which now moves depending on what is already in your basket rather than sitting at a fixed amount. The second is the way bundled discounts expire — in our tests, a price shown on the product page held for roughly ten minutes before reverting.

• Shipping thresholds now vary by basket contents, not a flat order value
• Bundle prices can expire while items sit in the cart
• Returns still run through the app, but the window is counted from delivery, not dispatch

None of this is hidden, exactly. It is disclosed at checkout, in the step most people skim. That is the practical problem: the decision to buy is made on the product page, and the number there is not always the number you pay.

The discount is real. It is just conditional, and the condition is never shown where you make the decision.

What this means for your basket

If your order is small, the effective price per item can end up above a supermarket's own-brand equivalent once shipping lands. If you are already ordering several items, the platform still comes out ahead in most of our test runs — but by a smaller margin than the headline suggests.

Our full methodology, including every cart screenshot and the exact threshold figures, is available on request. We will keep updating this story as the platform adjusts its delivery logic.