Two authorities of the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) calls on the agency to investigate e-commerce retailers Shein and Temu, after both websites were found to be selling “products deadly to infants and toddlers,” according to a letter posted Tuesday on the CPSC website.
CPSC Commissioners Peter Feldman and Douglas Dziak want the agency to evaluate how Singapore’s Shein, China’s Temu, and other online shopping platforms e-commerce Foreign-owned companies enforce their standards, manage relationships with third-party sellers, and represent imported products.
Shein and Temufrom PDD Group, who send cheap merchandise to the United States from China, raise “specific concerns” to the commission over their use of de minimis, a rule that exempts packages valued at $800 or less from tariffs if they are shipped directly to buyers.
The Shein and Temu detractors They attribute their success in the United States to their low prices and the de minimis rule. Both companies have also come under scrutiny by the quality of their products.
Last year, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers planned to introduce a bill to eliminate de minimis, widely used by the e-commerce platformsincluding third-party sellers in Amazon and Walmart.