How Regulators Uncovered Unsafe Products on Temu

The European Commission’s enforcement hinged on a series of mystery shopping exercises. Test purchases revealed that consumers in the EU are “very likely” to encounter illegal and non-compliant products on the platform . The findings showed serious safety failures in two key categories:

• Chargers: A very high percentage of selected chargers failed basic safety tests .
• Baby Toys: A high percentage of tested toys posed safety risks ranging from medium to high severity. These included hazardous chemicals exceeding legal safety limits and physical dangers such as suffocation from detachable parts .

Broad consumer testing corroborated these findings. A separate report by Euroconsumers found that 26 out of 27 tested Temu children’s products were non-compliant, with eight failures classified as high severity due to toxic metals or choking hazards .

Three Critical Failures in Temu’s Internal Safety Assessment

The Commission concluded that Temu’s October 2024 risk assessment fell significantly short of DSA standards, identifying three core failures :

1. Generic Analysis, Not Specific Evidence: Temu relied on general information about risks in the wider e-commerce sector instead of using specific evidence about its own service, including public complaints and independent testing results.
2. Seriously Underestimated Risk: The company severely miscalculated how frequently EU consumers encounter illegal items on the platform. This assessment directly contradicted results from the Commission’s own mystery shopping investigations.
3. Ignoring Platform Design Risks: Temu failed to properly assess how the design of its service—including its recommender systems and product promotion programs run by affiliated influencers—could actively amplify the dissemination of illegal and dangerous products.

More Penalties Are Likely

The €200 million fine is not the end of Temu’s regulatory challenges in Europe. The penalty resolves only the first part of a wide-ranging investigation. A second, separate DSA probe into Temu remains ongoing, focusing on concerns including addictive design features, recommender-system transparency, and researcher access to platform data . EU officials have indicated that further penalties could be imposed as a result of this continued probe "in the coming months" . Under the DSA, the Commission has the power to levy fines of up to 6% of a company's annual global turnover.

How Regulators Uncovered Unsafe Products on Temu

The European Commission’s enforcement hinged on a series of mystery shopping exercises. Test purchases revealed that consumers in the EU are “very likely” to encounter illegal and non-compliant products on the platform . The findings showed serious safety failures in two key categories:

• Chargers: A very high percentage of selected chargers failed basic safety tests .
• Baby Toys: A high percentage of tested toys posed safety risks ranging from medium to high severity. These included hazardous chemicals exceeding legal safety limits and physical dangers such as suffocation from detachable parts .

Broad consumer testing corroborated these findings. A separate report by Euroconsumers found that 26 out of 27 tested Temu children’s products were non-compliant, with eight failures classified as high severity due to toxic metals or choking hazards .

Three Critical Failures in Temu’s Internal Safety Assessment

The Commission concluded that Temu’s October 2024 risk assessment fell significantly short of DSA standards, identifying three core failures :

1. Generic Analysis, Not Specific Evidence: Temu relied on general information about risks in the wider e-commerce sector instead of using specific evidence about its own service, including public complaints and independent testing results.
2. Seriously Underestimated Risk: The company severely miscalculated how frequently EU consumers encounter illegal items on the platform. This assessment directly contradicted results from the Commission’s own mystery shopping investigations.
3. Ignoring Platform Design Risks: Temu failed to properly assess how the design of its service—including its recommender systems and product promotion programs run by affiliated influencers—could actively amplify the dissemination of illegal and dangerous products.

More Penalties Are Likely

The €200 million fine is not the end of Temu’s regulatory challenges in Europe. The penalty resolves only the first part of a wide-ranging investigation. A second, separate DSA probe into Temu remains ongoing, focusing on concerns including addictive design features, recommender-system transparency, and researcher access to platform data . EU officials have indicated that further penalties could be imposed as a result of this continued probe "in the coming months" . Under the DSA, the Commission has the power to levy fines of up to 6% of a company's annual global turnover.