Temu’s European headquarters in Dublin have been raided by EU regulators investigating a potential breach of foreign subsidy regulations. The Chinese online retailer, which is already in the European Commission’s spotlight over alleged failures to prevent illegal content being sold on its app and website, was raided last week without warning or any subsequent publicity. “We can confirm that the commission has carried out an unannounced inspection at the premises of a company active in the e-commerce sector in the EU, under the foreign subsidies regulation,” a commission spokesperson said…
Tag: Online shopping
Shein warns on Trump tariff uncertainty after profits slip
Shein has reported a 20% rise in global revenues to $37bn (£27.7bn) but profits have fallen as the fast-fashion retailer faced increased costs, even before it felt the impact of recent changes to US tax laws. The Singaporean parent company of the rapidly growing retailer said pre-tax profits had fallen by 13% to $1.3bn last year from $1.5bn in 2023 after an increase in selling and marketing costs, according to new accounts. Shein is thought to be trying to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange after efforts to list…
‘Oh my God, buy it!’ China’s livestream shopping stars risk being censored
Hua Shao stands knee-deep in water at the edge of the sea, behind a table piled high with large crabs. The famous Chinese TV host is sweaty, sunburnt and laughing with a co-host as a red-and-blue fishing boat bobs behind them. “The sea-ears taste so good, it must have been collected from a sea area where the water is very clear,” he tells more than 100,000 people who are watching online. It’s the eve of “618”, one of China’s biggest retail festivals, which are increasingly driven by the weird world…
‘They took my world’: fashion giant Shein accused of art theft
Vanessa Bowman paints the world around her: the 19th-century village church, her back garden, the leaves on the trees in the fields where she walks her dog. Once she has chosen a scene from her rural Dorset idyll, she puts brush to canvas, sometimes poring over the details for days in her studio. Over three decades she has honed a unique style and earned a loyal fanbase, with 20,000 followers on Instagram and commissions from House & Garden, Prince Charles’s Highgrove shop and Farrow & Ball. But when she received…