The Death of Haul Culture: How Temu and Shein's 2025 Collapse Ended the Fast Fashion Gold Rush

Introduction

Haul videos were social media's easiest hit: creators unboxing armfuls of $3 dresses, $6 sneakers, and $2 accessories while viewers dreamed of closets that didn’t cost a fortune. The format was simple and addictive—click, buy, unbox, react—and it created an economy of attention that turned bulk, ultra-cheap purchasing into content strategy. Platforms like Temu and Shein became shorthand for that economy, funding viral trends, affiliate-heavy creator paydays, and an entire influencer category devoted to abundance and bargain theater.

Then, in 2025, a policy shift that sounded like a bureaucratic footnote detonated that model. On May 2, 2025 the U.S. suspended the de minimis exemption that had let small direct-from-China shipments bypass full customs duties and inspections. What followed wasn’t merely a decline in app downloads or a pause in ad budgets. It was a structural collapse of the business model that had subsidized haul culture: loss-leading prices propped up by regulatory arbitrage, paid user acquisition, and cheap manufacturing. Overnight, the economics of buying and gifting dozens of low-cost items were exposed as fragile.

This exposé pulls the thread on how a single policy change revealed preexisting rot: inconsistent sizing, shipping delays, quality complaints, waning consumer trust, and an influencer economy built on thin margins. We’ll map the timeline and numbers—user declines, ad spend pullbacks, and consumer spending drops—explain how the creator ecosystem unraveled, and offer a roadmap for creators, platforms, and consumers who are navigating the aftermath. If haul culture had a funeral, the paperwork on the coffin was signed in Washington, D.C., but the chain of cause and effect reached all the way into camera angles, affiliate links, and the ethics of disposability.

Understanding Haul Culture and the Collapse

Haul culture was always part shopping, part performance art. Creators learned to craft suspense around packages: the reveal, the fit check, the critique—often with humor and hyperbole—and that structure turned a $4 dress into five minutes of watchable content. The economics underneath were trickier. Extremely low product prices were made possible by cross-border logistics and a policy environment that offered what industry observers called “regulatory arbitrage.” The de minimis exemption—originally raised years earlier—meant many low-value imports escaped the full force of customs duties and paperwork. Between 2016 and 2023 U.S. de minimis imports ballooned from about $9.2 billion to $54.5 billion, and Chinese sellers accounted for roughly 60% of those shipments. That gap allowed platforms to advertise with impunity and subsidize razor-thin margins through scale and marketing.

By early 2025, the warning signs were visible. From April 2024 to February 2025, Shein's metrics showed erosion: weekly shoppers were down about 8%, monthly shoppers down 11%, and daily shopping activity plunged 41%. Temu was suffering steeper declines in the same window—weekly shopping down 19%, monthly down 18%, daily down 17%. AliExpress showed a different slant of the trend: weekly shoppers down 4%, monthly down 19%, and daily activity down 38%. These numbers suggested that the audience appetite for endless bargain hauls was cooling even before policy changes took hold.

When the de minimis suspension hit on May 2, 2025, it removed a pillar of the ultra-cheap formula. Import duties and customs scrutiny meant higher landed costs, slower fulfillment, and the end of price structures that had become normalized across TikTok and Instagram. The business models that had underwritten mass-scale advertising and creator payouts depended on that loophole; when it closed, platforms had to either raise prices (which antagonized bargain-hunting audiences) or shrink margins (which advertisers and investors resisted).

The collapse wasn’t just an economic story. Trust metrics and consumer perception were already fragile. Surveys found that 88% of respondents trusted Amazon more than Temu, while only 4.9% trusted Temu more than Amazon, and about 8% trusted neither. Complaints about sizing, inconsistent quality, and delivery delays had been mounting, and the policy change acted as a force-multiplier—exposing weaknesses that marketing gloss and subsidized pricing had masked.

Key Components and Analysis

To unpack how haul culture crumbled, you need to see the interlocking pieces: regulatory change, consumer behavior, advertising dynamics, and creator economics. Here’s how each component interacted and why that interaction was lethal for the fast fashion gold rush.

Regulatory Shock

- The de minimis suspension on May 2, 2025 eliminated the price arbitrage that let direct-from-China goods undercut domestic competitors. That “technical” change translated into immediate cost pressures. The math that allowed platforms to sell at $2–$10 and still fund massive acquisition budgets no longer worked at scale.

Consumer Engagement Declines

- Pre-policy signals were clear: Shein’s weekly shoppers dropped 8% and daily activity plunged 41% in the months before the collapse window. Temu’s drops were even starker. Those shifts meant fewer eyeballs per piece of haul content, reducing virality and the conversion funnel that creators relied upon.

Advertising Pullback and Rankings Collapse

- With conversion economics shifting, platforms retrenched. Temu’s daily average U.S. ad spend fell by 31% versus March 2025 and Shein’s ad spend decreased by 19%. Paid acquisition had been the oxygen for app downloads—once dialed down, app-store rankings cratered. Temu fell from #3 to #85 in two weeks; Shein fell from #7 to #80. The visibility loss fed on itself: fewer downloads meant fewer new customers to normalize higher prices.

User Exodus and Spending Drops

- Between March and June 2025, Temu’s monthly active users in the U.S. fell 51% to 40.2 million. Shein’s user base contracted 12% to 41.4 million. Consumer spending followed the trend: for the week ending May 11, 2025, Shein spending dropped more than 10% while Temu dropped more than 20%. These are sudden, scale-level contractions—not slow corrections—and they reveal how brittle a model can be when founded on a tax loophole and heavy advertising.

Quality, Trust, and the Creator Economy

- The platform-level problems cascaded into the creator economy. Creators lost views, affiliate commissions fell, and haul videos became less lucrative. Trust metrics showed Amazon as the default “trusted” alternative to Temu; Temu was deeply distrusted by a majority. Where creators once relied on repeat buys and impulse conversions, the audience began to question the value proposition—was quantity worth the hassle of returns, inconsistent sizing, and the ethics of disposability?

Industry Perspectives

- Analysts framed the outcome in stark terms. Greg Zakowicz described a "perfect storm" of long shipping times, inconsistent product quality, shrinking margins, and elevated tariffs that together exposed the fragility of Temu's foundation. That “perfect storm” view is useful because it highlights that the collapse wasn’t a single-variable failure but the result of interdependent failures across operations, policy, and consumer sentiment.

The upshot: haul culture’s viral loop required cheap goods (enabled by regulatory gaps), high discovery velocity (paid ads plus social platform virality), and repeat purchasing behavior. Remove the first factor, and the whole loop destabilized. Creators who had optimized content for bargain quantity rather than product longevity or brand affinity found their content losing utility and audience engagement.

Practical Applications: What Creators and Platforms Must Do Now

For creators, platforms, and marketers who grew within haul culture, the collapse is an opportunity to pivot rather than a verdict of failure. Here are actionable changes grounded in what’s been learned.

Reframe Content Around Value, Not Volume

- Move from “haul” to “curation.” Showcase fewer items with a focus on quality, fit, sustainability, and longevity. Audiences are shifting toward skepticism about quantity; creators who help viewers shop smarter can regain trust and command higher commissions.

Invest in Trust Signals

- Creators should prioritize transparent try-ons, honest reviews, and post-purchase follow-ups. Platforms can facilitate easier return policies, verified reviews, and clearer sizing guides. Trust directly affects conversion—surveys showing 88% trust of Amazon over Temu indicate viewers want reliability.

Diversify Revenue Streams

- Relying solely on affiliate links tied to bargain purchases is risky. Creators should cultivate diversified income: affiliate partnerships with higher-quality brands, direct product collaborations, memberships, and exclusive content. This reduces dependence on massive volume conversions.

Lean Into Longer-Form Storytelling

- Short-form viral hauls worked while margins were enormous and attention was cheap. Now, longer-form format—sizing guides, styling capsules, repair and upcycling—can create deeper engagement and higher lifetime value per viewer.

Platform Strategy: Sustainable Acquisition

- For platforms, the lesson is to move from unsustainable paid user acquisition to retention-focused product improvements. Improve logistics, transparent pricing, and build loyalty programs that reward repeat buyers without relying on margin-sapping subsidies.

Data-Driven Content Adjustment

- Creators should use signals—open rates, click-throughs, return rates—to tailor what they show. If products have high return rates or low satisfaction, avoid pushing them. Use analytics to optimize product selection and recommend alternatives with better margins and lower returns.

Community-Building Over Transactional Relationships

- The collapse exposed the fragility of purely transactional creator-follower bonds. Building community—where creators answer questions, host styling sessions, and co-create content—creates resilience if direct product links underperform.

By applying these practical pivots, creators and platforms can salvage trust, preserve monetization, and transition from a disposability-first model to a value-first economy.

Challenges and Solutions

Transitioning away from haul culture is not without friction. Here are primary challenges and pragmatic solutions for each stakeholder group.

Challenge: Short-Term Revenue Declines

- Solution: Expect a soft landing. Creators and platforms will face revenue dips as high-volume, low-margin purchases wane. Hedge by negotiating better affiliate rates with higher-quality brands, introducing paid content tiers, and launching limited drops or collaborations that command higher per-unit margins.

Challenge: Audience Backlash Over Price Increases

- Solution: Education and transparency. Explain why prices change: tariffs, quality standards, or fair labor costs. Frame higher prices as better value—durability, fewer returns, improved sizing guides—and provide side-by-side comparisons to show true cost-per-wear savings.

Challenge: Logistics and Returns Infrastructure

- Solution: Platforms must invest in regional fulfillment and clearer returns. Reducing delivery times and making returns painless preserves buyer confidence. For creators, only promote products with reliable fulfillment histories and provide honest expectations about delivery windows.

Challenge: Creator Skillset Gap

- Solution: Creators trained on haul-style formats must learn product strategy and storytelling. Workshops, creator collectives, and partnerships with experienced brand marketers can help. Brands should also provide bundles of assets—sizing charts, model info, fabric details—to make creator content more informative.

Challenge: Creator Saturation and Competition

- Solution: Specialization is key. Niches—sustainable fashion, plus-size styling, durable workwear—create differentiated loyal audiences. The era of "every creator does 50-item hauls" is over; depth beats breadth.

Challenge: Platform Trust Deficit

- Solution: Independent verification of listings, clearer meta-data, and external audits of quality will help. Platforms must prioritize user support and fast resolution for disputes. Third-party certification (sustainability labels, verified factories) can rebuild credibility.

Challenge: Regulatory Uncertainty

- Solution: Platforms and brands should build flexible pricing and routing strategies. Diversify supply chains geographically and maintain compliance teams to pivot ahead of regulatory shifts. Lobbying is part of the toolbox, but compliance and contingency planning are immediate needs.

These solutions require investment and patience. Short-term pain is likely; long-term stability comes from building systems that don't hinge on price subsidies and unbounded user acquisition.

Future Outlook

What does the post-haul ecosystem look like? Several trajectories are plausible, and many are already underway.

A New Equilibrium of Pricing and Trust

- Expect prices to normalize upward for many direct-from-China imports in the U.S., reflecting true landed costs. That will reduce impulse bulk-buying but can increase satisfaction per purchase when quality and delivery expectations are met.

Creator Economy Maturation

- Creators will professionalize. The influencers who pivot to consultancy, curated collections, and brand collaborations will gain stable income. The shock will weed out creators who can’t shift from churny, volume-driven tactics.

Revival of Domestic and Nearshore Options

- Higher tariffs and customs scrutiny create incentives for nearshoring and reshoring certain apparel lines. That could revive small-scale, higher-quality American production and benefit mid-tier brands that can emphasize ethical sourcing.

Platform Consolidation and Differentiation

- Platforms that invested in trust, logistics, and product verification will survive and possibly consolidate market share. Niche marketplaces emphasizing sustainability or high-quality fast turnaround may siphon committed consumers.

Regulatory Ripples and Global Trade Effects

- Policymakers will face pressure to balance consumer access to affordable goods with protection for domestic industries. The suspension of de minimis was a high-leverage move. Future trade policy could create ongoing volatility; businesses must adapt.

Cultural Shift: From Abundance to Intentionality

- The symbolic end of haul culture will align with broader cultural trends: environmental awareness, anti-consumerism, and a preference for quality over quantity. That cultural shift will change what content goes viral—repair tutorials, secondhand hauls, and styling for longevity may replace disposable unboxings.

Innovation in Product Experience

- Augmented reality fit tools, richer product metadata, and better returns logistics will become differentiators. Platforms and creators who use tech to reduce buyer uncertainty will capture higher lifetime value.

In short, what looked like a fast fashion gold rush was a speculative bubble grounded in regulatory anomalies. The correction is forcing a more resilient, trust-first market to emerge. That’s painful, but it’s also an opportunity for the creator economy to mature.

Conclusion

Haul culture’s heyday—driven by bargain spectacle, algorithm amplification, and regulatory loopholes—was always a fragile equilibrium. The suspension of the de minimis exemption on May 2, 2025 served as a release valve that exposed the structural weaknesses of that model: fragile margins, quality inconsistency, logistical brittleness, and eroding trust. The result was dramatic: precipitous user declines and ad spend pullbacks, with Temu’s U.S. monthly active users halving in the span of months and Shein’s metrics similarly dented. Market responses—advertising cutbacks, app store rank collapses, and spending drops of more than 10% for Shein and 20% for Temu during key weeks—were not accidental but symptoms of a market that had been propped up by a policy condition that no longer existed.

This isn’t just a business story; it’s a cultural one. The creator economy that thrived on hauling endless goods must evolve or face irrelevance. Trust, curation, and value will replace sheer volume as the drivers of engagement and revenue. For creators, that means better curation, diversified monetization, and community-first content. For platforms, it means investments in logistics, transparency, and product quality. For consumers, it means recalibrating expectations and perhaps paying a little more for goods that actually fit, arrive when promised, and last longer.

The fast fashion gold rush has ended. What follows is a market that—while less breathlessly cheap—can be more sustainable, more humane, and ultimately more resilient. For anyone who made their living or their pastime out of haul videos, the future will reward adaptability: honest content, smarter curation, and a commitment to the long game over the instant viral win.

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Actionable Takeaways - Creators: Shift from haul volume to curated recommendations, disclose honest reviews, and diversify income (memberships, higher-margin collabs). - Platforms: Prioritize returns infrastructure, verified listings, and transparent sizing guides to rebuild trust. - Brands: Offer capsule collections, better quality control, and clear product metadata to win creators’ promotion dollars. - Consumers: Value cost-per-wear over unit price; expect higher prices but better service and lower return rates. - Everyone: Prepare for continued regulatory volatility—build adaptable supply chains and pricing strategies.