Temu Thinks I'm Indiana Jones

So I'm hankering to get ready for my cruise coming up in just over a week now and I decide I'd like to get a couple Hawaiian shirts to wear so I put a query into Google and up pops a few amazingly priced options for some pretty awesome looking shirt designs.

Now I had been hemming and hawing on whether to check out Temu for a while now with the main attraction being the outrageously cheap prices. Tonight I gave it a go. Right off the bat they say I get a $200 coupon offer, whatever that means, and I dive into their site. What an adventure! Nothing like Walmart.com or Amazon.com. Those sites are downright boring in comparison. This one is a smorgasbord of everything and anything all vying for your attention. But it's not a haphazard and crazy mess, it's organized well and the flashing messages aren't too aggressively in your face. Yes there's a timer ticking down trying to build that sense of urgency. Yes there are red warning messages here and there saying that there's only one left of the item you're looking at. But I'm not getting the feeling of being so incredibly over rushed. The main impression is just how smooth the site operates and how pretty the photos are.

The other big takeaway is the impressive AI algorithm. Of course I'm savvy enough to know that no matter what shopping site you're on, AI algorithms track what you're looking at and try to gauge what it shows you on subsequent pages accordingly. But Temu seems to do this oh so well.

With everything I looked at, and it perhaps even timed how long I stayed on the item, it built a backstory for me. And man, in Temu's eyes, I surely am non other than the famed adventurer, Indiana Jones. After 30 minutes of browsing, I was even offered this:

First though, Temu had to learn about me. I browsed through it's assorted offerings of plus sized men's Hawaiian themed shirts and casual hats and threw a few into my cart:

Then, of course as they most likely plan for customers to do, I got distracted. Something out of the blue, having not much to do with what I had queried was offered in the lineup and it caught my eye:

Clicking on it to be sure and learning that yes, it was indeed an incredibly wide brimmed Safari like hat with absolutely idiotic looking electric fans built in the brim, I chuckled and clicked away thinking "What idiot would buy that?" Too late. Temu thinks I like it.

Subsequent curiosities popped up and I took a gander or two:

Not going to lie, I almost bought the anchor necklace and the dragon's head walking stick. They were only $5 and $20 respectively!

After I bought my shirts and hats, and a $15 two camera drone (oh man we'll see what this is like), they tallied up my order apparently applying that $200 coupon to reduce my order to the prices that were offered to me. So I guess if I didn't have that supposed $200 coupon I would have paid $200 for two shirts, two hats, and what will likely be a cheap ass drone? Okay Temu, whatever. LOL!

But then there were more offerings, and it was like the AI algorithm had sized me up:

And of course, just to show they have everything any world hopping archaeological adventurer with a whip and a fedora could ever want, they also have the Arc of the Covenant as shown in the first picture.

Well thanks Temu! Perhaps you have me pegged? I'll visit you again anytime I feel like I want to go on a little adventure. Just remember... No snakes. I don't like snakes.