TJ Maxx Not Afraid of Temu and Shein

In the last earnings call, one of the analyst’s questions at the end caught my attention. It was, how much do you guys think about Temu and Shein, and are they a factor?

The response was interesting. You would think that this Temu online bargain shopper would have the potential to take from a store-based bargain shopper but at this point, you might be wrong in that assumption.

TJMaxx CEO responded that the brands offered by TJMaxx do not overlap much with the Temu shopper who is after mostly just cheap private-label goods.

There was a discussion on a slack thread and the group had a few more thoughts on this topic:

First, is the Temu shopper even valuable at all? In other words, if this shopper was on Wish, and now is on Temu, they will just go to the next thing and so this consumer is scraping the bottom of the barrel anyway, why would you want them? Victor Castro is a fan of this approach - you can't chase the bottom-feeders under the bottom.

My only thought on this, is be prepared for the result. If the market says your price is too high, your price is too high. Whether you think it is due to Temu, Shein, or the tooth fairy.

Second, TJMaxx shopper tends to want to treasure hunt and find the brand gems hidden in the store. This does not match the behavior of the Temu shopper who just wants absolutely anything for $3. My friend Jessica Lesesky and Watson Weekend co-host was kind enough to highlight this.

Either way, it’s clear to me. Every online retailer must have a Temu/Shein strategy. It’s either that you don’t care about their shopper at all, or you are lowering your cost to serve like Amazon, or you are waiting it out hoping it's a fad (better be right), or you are finding some other strategy. The growth is too large to simply stick your head in the sand, especially if your own retail private label brands are nothing to write home about —

I’m looking at you Macy’s.