#14 Shein, Temu: What a Suspiciously Low Price Actually Hides

At Deutsche Telekom, I spent years staring at profit-and-loss statements. One thing you learn in finance is that an abnormally low price is never an industrial miracle. Something has always been stripped off the invoice — a cost shifted elsewhere, a tax dodged, quality sacrificed somewhere the customer never sees.

Since July 1, 2026, the European Union has applied a flat €3 customs duty on low-value parcels from Asia — the ones that used to slip through entirely tax-free under the €150 threshold. Since March 26, platforms like Shein, Temu, and AliExpress have also legally become "deemed importers," responsible for the compliance of what they sell with EU standards. A permanent system, the EU Customs Data Hub, is set to eliminate the €150 threshold entirely by 2028.

The number that stopped me cold: the EU receives roughly two billion parcels a year under this regime, and only 0.006% of them are physically inspected by customs. On that basis, Shein is estimated to have generated over €30 billion in European revenue while avoiding up to 12% in duties a conventional importer would have had to pay.

What this actually changes

A €15 pair of sneakers shipped from China doesn't suddenly become a €30 pair because of a €3 customs fee. But that €3, combined with product compliance that's now actually enforceable, is the first few inches of a wall finally being built around a system that, for years, operated outside the rules everyone else had to follow. A company manufacturing in Europe, paying social contributions for its workers, getting its leather certified, has spent years competing against prices that simply weren't honest.

I'm not saying this out of commercial bitterness — Singulaar isn't positioned in the same price segment anyway, and I'm not claiming a €15 pair and one made in Cologne serve the same buyer. I'm saying it because price transparency is exactly what's been missing from this debate all along. When a product is three to five times cheaper than an equivalent made under verifiable conditions, the question isn't "how are they so competitive?" It's "who — or what — is paying the difference on my behalf?" Sometimes it's a tax loophole. Sometimes it's a wage. Often, it's both.

The limit of this measure — worth saying plainly

A €3 fee per parcel isn't going to make ultra-cheap fast fashion uncompetitive overnight. Platforms have already started adapting — some are optimizing their logistics to limit the impact, others are testing European warehouses to sidestep the individual-parcel issue entirely. A tax is never the end of the story; it's an adjustment to the rules of the game that will keep shifting for years. And 0.006% of parcels inspected, even with a flat fee in place, still means a system where the overwhelming majority of products entering Europe are checked by no one.

What I take from this, as the founder of a brand that's manufactured in Europe from day one: it's not the end of a business model, but it is the first time its hidden cost is seriously starting to come to light. The rest stays a matter of choice — yours, when you look at a product page and its price, and honestly ask yourself what's behind it.