Temu Introduces Spring Festival Incentives: First-Ever Price Comparison Suspension May Signal Adjustments to Traffic and Pricing Systems

Ebrun Exclusive | February 10: Temu buyers recently notified some sellers with a "Spring Festival Operation Reminder." It mentioned that during the Spring Festival period, "comparison and expansion of similar products" will be temporarily suspended in phases. This statement quickly drew attention among sellers and was widely interpreted as a short-term relaxation of the platform's "traffic restriction for high prices" mechanism. According to Temu buyers, not all products automatically benefit from this policy. Product listings must meet three criteria simultaneously between February 6 and February 22 to be temporarily exempt from similar product price comparisons: first, the product must have been listed before February 6; second, it must not have triggered traffic restrictions due to high prices after listing; third, the product quality score must be 80 or higher. These combined conditions indicate that the policy is not a universal relaxation but specifically targets high-quality listings with stable sales and compliant performance in pricing and fulfillment. In the notice, buyers also explicitly reminded sellers to seize this time window and reasonably increase inventory to cope with potential order peaks during the Spring Festival and in March. However, the platform emphasized that this adjustment does not equate to a full lift of traffic restrictions. Listings previously flagged for high prices will not regain traffic as a result. The "traffic restriction for high prices" has long been one of the most controversial core mechanisms for Temu sellers. Many sellers have reported that their listings often face sudden reductions or even cuts in front-end traffic due to system price comparisons. Notably, this is the first time since Temu's launch in 2022 that the platform has explicitly announced a suspension of the similar product price comparison mechanism during the Spring Festival, signaling an unusual adjustment. From a direct motivation perspective, the move appears driven by practical considerations to reduce supply volatility. During the Spring Festival, domestic factories undergo concentrated holidays, replenishment slows, and cross-border fulfillment uncertainties increase. By temporarily easing high-price traffic restrictions, Temu aims to encourage sellers to stabilize supply amid relatively relaxed price pressures, ensuring sufficient inventory for more controllable fulfillment performance and avoiding experience fluctuations due to stockouts or delays. On a deeper level, industry observers suggest that this adjustment may not be merely an operational "easing" but could be closely related to evolving regulatory compliance challenges, potentially representing a tentative revision of the platform's existing traffic and pricing logic. Domestically, the "Internet Platform Price Behavior Rules" released late last year will take effect on April 10 this year. The rules stipulate that platforms must not impose unreasonable restrictions on merchants' pricing behaviors through measures such as raising fees, withholding deposits, reducing subsidies, limiting traffic, lowering search rankings, algorithmic demotion, blocking stores, or delisting products. These rules primarily target platforms' price interventions against merchants within China. Temu's core operational systems, pricing mechanisms, algorithmic distribution, and merchant management teams are concentrated domestically, making regulatory enforcement feasible if price interventions occur within China. Overseas, Temu faces increasingly stringent regulatory scrutiny. Following a complaint by the German Retail Association (HDE), the German Federal Cartel Office officially launched an antitrust investigation into Temu in October 2025, focusing on allegations of illegal interference with merchant pricing. Foreign media reports suggest that Temu may require merchants to set prices significantly lower—by about 85%—on its platform compared to other e-commerce channels like Amazon. This practice, referred to as a "lowest price agreement," is seen by German regulators as undermining merchants' pricing autonomy and potentially distorting the overall market price system. The investigation is ongoing and is considered a landmark case in the EU and Germany's efforts to strengthen oversight of cross-border e-commerce platforms. Against this backdrop, the temporary easing of high-price traffic restrictions during the Spring Festival appears to be a strategic adjustment with testing implications. By reducing the weight of price factors during periods of high supply volatility, the platform can observe changes in key metrics such as conversion rates, refund rates, GMV, average order value, and daily active users. In the future, the importance of price in product recommendation algorithms may be further diminished, while factors like quality and fulfillment stability could gain prominence. From this perspective, the "suspension of price comparisons" during the Spring Festival window not only offers short-term operational benefits but may also serve as a precursor to Temu's long-term adjustments in algorithmic logic and compliance pathways. 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