Amazon is rolling out a new discount storefront, dubbed Haul, which will offer low-cost products in direct competition with rivals (and Gen Z favorites) Temu and Shein.
The Haul store is currently in beta release, though only available through the Amazon mobile app or via a mobile web browser. Per the company’s announcement post, “[Haul] provides customers in the U.S. a place to discover even more affordable fashion, home, lifestyle, electronics, and other products with ultra-low prices and typical delivery times of one to two weeks.”
Everything sold there will be priced under $20 (with the majority priced at $10 or less) and largely sourced from the same Chinese bulk-manufacturing firms that sell on both Temu and Shein. Amazon will even throw in an added 5 percent discount if you buy $50 of stuff, and a 10 percent discount for orders of $75 or more. Given the naturally shoddy nature of these types of products, Amazon will cover your purchase with its “A-to-z Guarantee” as well as allow for free returns after up to 15 days, so long as what you bought costs more than $3.
“Finding great products at very low prices is important to customers, and we continue to explore ways that we can work with our selling partners so they can offer products at ultra-low prices,” Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of Worldwide Selling Partner Services at Amazon, said in a press statement. “Amazon Haul aims to help make shopping for fashion, home, lifestyle, electronics, and other products even more fun, easy, and affordable. It’s early days for this experience, and we’ll continue to listen to customers as we refine and expand it in the weeks and months to come.”
Amazon’s timing for this launch probably could have been better, given that the incoming Trump administration is threatening to enact tariffs (essentially, a 60 percent tax) on everything imported from China, where, again, a majority of this stuff is made. However, Temu and Shein have tapped into the deeply lucrative Gen Z market, one that Amazon is desperate to pursue. Per Appfigures, Temu was the most popular app with U.S. users 18 to 24 years of age this year, notching 42 million downloads by that demographic between January and October 2024. Shein saw 14.7 million downloads over the same period.
Source: Amazon via TechCrunch
