Over the last few months, Temun and Shein, two of the largest Chinese ecommerce brands, have dramatically decreased their ad spend in Europe. While there’s no official word as to why, the move is likely due to the recent removal of customs duty exemptions in the region, which makes it much less cheap for these brands to export products to the EU.

This drop in ad visibility among these Chinese ecommerce giants opens up a major opportunity for Western retailers to fill the void and get their stores and products in front of more customers, but they need to go about it the right way to truly find success.

Temu and Shein Pulling Back on European Ads

According to data from Google Shopping, both Temu and Shein have been steadily cutting their ad spend and ad visibility in Europe over the last few months. Since early May 2026, Temu has dropped ad spend by around half, while Shein has almost totally exited from the market in terms of advertising.

This is a stark contrast to how it was before, as there’s been a huge influx of cheap Chinese ecommerce imports in recent years, with many of them coming from the likes of Temu and Shein. Many consumers were instantly drawn to the lower prices that these brands could offer compared to domestic sellers.

The New EU Customs Duty Rules Are Likely to Blame

Likely the main catalyst behind this dramatic drop in recent months is Europe’s move to remove duty exemptions on ecommerce imports. Starting on July 1st, and scheduled to remain in effect for two years, the EU implemented a €3 fee per item on low-value imports under €150. Previously, low-value ecommerce imports bypassed customs duties altogether.

One of the main reasons why the new customs duty was put into effect was to curb the extreme growth of cheap Chinese imports flooding the EU, and level the playing field for domestic sellers that simply can’t compete with the prices these Chinese companies are selling at.

With the duty exemption being removed, it has become a lot more expensive to import low-value goods into Europe. And when your entire model is built on shipping millions of small and inexpensive parcels directly from China to Europe, like Temu’s and Shein’s have been, this new duty hits especially hard and can become very expensive, very quickly.

This Opens Up A Massive Ad Space Opportunity

Shein and Temu cutting their ads in the EU by a huge margin opens up plenty of opportunities for Western brands operating in Europe to fill the void. Any time such massive players like this leave a market, a large gap remains.

However, while there are certainly still opportunities for smaller sellers and companies to capture this ad surplus, Amazon is already making moves to capitalize on it, as well.

For example, Amazon moved up its huge Prime Day sale to June from its usual July, which could have been in an effort to capitalize on the increased visibility due to the Chinese retailer’s ad presence collapsing. Rather than waiting until mid-July like normal, when the gap may have already been filled, Amazon decided to get ahead of things and move quickly.

In the same data that shows Temu and Shein’s ad spend in Europe dropping dramatically, Amazon’s ad spend remains consistent throughout the period, showing that they’re certainly not backing down and are ready to compete.

Our Take

Making the Right Changes to Capture This Ad Surplus

But while Amazon is making a play for the ad gap, that doesn’t mean other ecommerce sellers and merchants shouldn’t try for it, as well.

First, make sure to clean up things like your product titles, descriptions, and images. The images should be clear, and the titles/descriptions must be well-written and accurately describe your items. The last thing you want is to bump up your ad spend to try to fill the gap, only for people to come to your site and see misspellings, unclear descriptions, and poor images.

Also, make sure you have a fast online storefront. The site should load quickly, you should be able to navigate without lag, and pages should load quickly and easily on a variety of devices. Fast sites are incredibly important today, as nearly half of all users expect a site to load in two seconds or less, and even a one-second page delay may cut conversions by 7%.

Finally, you should aim for your site to be trustworthy by including social proof where possible and ensuring you support the most popular payment methods in Europe, so customers in the region feel comfortable.