Pulse News

**Amazon Plans Global Expansion for Haul, Its Temu Rival**

By Theo Wayt

Feb 28, 2025, 10:31am PST

Amazon is going global with its counterattack on bargain sellers Temu and Shein. The e-commerce giant is planning on expanding Haul, the ultracheap Temu look-alike it launched in the U.S. in November, to countries in Europe starting this year, according to a seller consultant who spoke with Amazon representatives. At the same time, a recent Amazon job posting described efforts to launch in Mexico as part of a broader global expansion push.

**The Takeaway**

Amazon is planning to expand its Temu rival, Haul, globally this year, showing that the company still sees promise in direct-from-China shipments amid mounting trade threats.

Haul appears to have evolved into a major priority for top Amazon executives as the company looks to spark growth in its relatively slow-growing e-commerce business and fend off rivals that have tapped into a willingness from many consumers to sacrifice quality and speed for ultra-cheap prices. The Haul site resembles the gamified, bargain touting layout of Temu, which was the most downloaded Apple app in the U.S. in 2023 and 2024 and has hooked shoppers on making a constant stream of small purchases.

Listings for Haul-related jobs posted earlier in February said that the 2025 goals of the company's S-Team—a group of 29 top executives including CEO Andy Jassy and retail chief Doug Herrington—include making Haul "Go Big" in the U.S. and launching worldwide this year. That would put Haul head-to-head with Temu in more of the nearly 100 countries where the China-owned site operates.

An Amazon spokesperson said: "We are always exploring new ways to work with our selling partners to delight our customers around the world with more selection, lower prices and greater convenience. We do not have any further details to share."

The Haul site, which sells items priced at less than $20 with slower delivery times than Amazon's main site, was born out of an internal debate over how to respond to the rapid growth of Temu and other sites that sell cheap goods like $4 headphones and $11 shorts directly from China. Haul's design represents a major break from Amazon's strategy of winning over shoppers with speedy shipping, which has required the company to pour billions into warehouses and other logistics infrastructure.

Amazon's move to expand Haul globally suggests the e-commerce giant still sees its direct-from-China strategy as a way to grow its e-commerce business, where growth has slowed significantly from 2010s and pandemic-era highs. Amazon's online stores net sales grew 7% year-over-year in 2024, faster than the preceding two years but far below growth rates of 40% in 2020 and 13% in 2021.

But Amazon's expansion of the direct-from-China model comes even as trade changes loom that threaten the profitability of the system. Temu, in contrast, has responded to the threats of trade policy changes around the world by signing up more merchants that ship from warehouses within the U.S., EU and other regions, bringing its model more in line with Amazon's original e-commerce marketplace approach.

Haul uses the same duty-free import method as Temu and Shein to send goods from China to U.S. shoppers without paying tariffs, helping it keep prices low for shoppers. But the Trump administration abruptly banned imports from China using that trade provision earlier this month, though the White House then delayed implementation of the ban after several days of chaos.

The looming end of the U.S. trade loophole, plus additional tariffs Trump has slapped on China, mean direct-from-China sellers now face steep tariff costs. Similarly, Mexico added a 19% tariff in January for individual items imported from China and other countries that don't have trade pacts with Mexico. The crackdown also extends to other regions including the EU, where lawmakers have also been calling for eliminating similarly favorable treatment of small parcels entering the bloc directly from China and other countries. Already, officials have discussed adding more fees and customs checks for low-priced parcel imports to Europe.

Jassy, when asked on Thursday about how U.S. changes to the low-cost parcel import rule could affect competition with Shein and other Chinese e-commerce firms, said Amazon could be less exposed to changes to the rule, which is known as de minimis. "I would say on de minimis specifically, we have a certain number of items that are shipped that way as well for things like Haul," Jassy said during a Bloomberg interview. "We maybe have less of it than some other companies you mentioned."

Even if ways to dodge tariffs disappear, there are other advantages to the direct-from-China model. The wages of warehouse laborers who prepare orders are much lower in China than in the U.S. or Europe, helping keep overall fulfillment costs lower than for shipping goods to shoppers from domestic warehouses.

Expanding Haul is also a relatively low-cost way for Amazon to defend the growth of its international business by appealing to bargain shoppers in markets where Temu has already launched. When Amazon launches a version of its main e-commerce site in a new country, it typically has to spend heavily to open new warehouses and other infrastructure oriented around speedy shipping, but launching Haul almost certainly wouldn't require as much spending.

Theo Wayt is a reporter covering Amazon, e-commerce and logistics for The Information. You can reach him via email at theo@theinformation.com or through text message or Signal at 917-300-8909. He is on Twitter @theo_wayt.