News dated July 13: Data from SMEC, a European e-commerce marketing research firm, shows that since July 1, the EU has officially imposed a new fee of 3 euros per imported parcel valued below 150 euros. Affected by this policy, cross-border e-commerce platforms with Chinese backgrounds have successively adjusted their advertising strategies in Europe.
Citing Google Shopping data, SMEC pointed out that Temu’s ad exposure has dropped by roughly half, while SHEIN has nearly pulled out of Google Shopping ad bidding to avoid new charges levied on in-transit parcels upon their arrival at EU borders. Meanwhile, the voluntary cutbacks in ad spending by major cross-border platforms have freed up massive ad inventory for local European retailers.
Its analysis notes that Google Shopping serves as a core marketing channel for Temu, SHEIN, AliExpress, as well as hundreds of East Asian M2C manufacturers and cross-border e-commerce players. These advertisers are extremely sensitive to market policy shifts, and fluctuations in paid ad exposure clearly reflect platforms’ willingness and capacity to continue investing in the European market.
SMEC stated that the core driver behind the sharp pullback in ad spend lies in the tariff calculation mechanism.
Customs duties are assessed not based on when consumers place orders or sellers ship goods, but on the date parcels cross EU borders. Shipping lead times for Chinese cross-border sellers usually range from several days to weeks. The closer shipments are to the July 1 policy launch date, the higher the risk of in-transit packages incurring the new fees. As a result, platforms had to slash ad budgets in advance; otherwise, a large volume of already sold goods would incur unforeseen extra clearance costs.
To evaluate the policy’s impact on cross-border platforms, SMEC analyzed data from around 500 Google Shopping advertisers across Europe. It measured ad investment scale by tracking how many ad accounts competed directly against platforms including Temu and SHEIN.
The drastic reduction in ad spending by Chinese cross-border platforms also created a market gap on Google Shopping — though this vacuum did not last long.
Amazon moved the fastest to fill the void.
Per official schedules, Amazon Prime Day ran globally across 26 countries from June 23 to June 26, overlapping almost perfectly with the window when Temu and SHEIN rapidly scaled back ads. SMEC believes this timing is no coincidence: as numerous Chinese e-commerce advertisers exited Google Shopping auctions, Amazon ramped its ad budget to an annual peak.
SMEC also highlighted a noteworthy development.
While Temu and SHEIN were cutting ad budgets, Joybuy, JD.com’s cross-border e-commerce arm, quietly began bidding for Google Shopping ads weeks before its official European market launch.
This case proves that new entrants can quickly build market presence on Google Shopping’s ad auction system with sufficient budget. With leading players scaling back, the competitive landscape of Europe’s e-commerce ad market is undergoing rapid reshuffling.
Nevertheless, industry insiders point out that drawing lessons from the previous US tariff dispute, the disruption caused by this round of tariff adjustments will likely be offset within the year via optimized supply chain costs across Chinese e-commerce sellers and widespread retail price hikes. Under an optimistic outlook, these platforms may resume and reset their European ad spend operations as early as this year.