Designer 'exhausted' by battle over images on Temu

Louise Banham holding up a large bee created by her own company (in her left hand) and a smaller bee bought from a Temu seller

A small business owner has said she is "just exhausted" after battling to get copies of her designs removed from retail site Temu.

Louise Banham, who co-owns Norfolk Rustic Warehouse, near King's Lynn, designs and produces steel garden decorations, such as metal bees.

She said she was shocked to see the Temu sellers were also "blatantly" lifting pictures from her website, adding "at least if you steal the designs, do your own pictures".

A spokesperson for Chinese-owned Temu said: "We take intellectual property rights protection seriously and will investigate the matter and take appropriate action."

Feeling frustrated, Miss Banham decided to order a rusty bee from one of the sellers.

"Ours are made from 3mm-thick (0.11in) steel and are 51cm-wide (20in), while theirs are tiny, less than a quarter of the size, poor quality and made of tin," she said.

Founded in 2022, Temu is an e-commerce website and app that connects shoppers with third-party sellers rather than offering its own products.

Its sellers are largely based in China and many items are shipped directly from there.

Miss Banham discovered photographs she had taken at home and at work were being used to sell similar products on Temu

Marc Barber, Miss Banham's partner and co-owner of the business, first spotted their website images being used on Temu earlier this year.

"They'd included pictures I'd shot in my own house - that was my sideboard and I thought, 'Can you be more blatant?'," Miss Banham said.

Other pictures lifted from their website were taken at their warehouse.

The couple contacted Temu, but each time a listing was taken down, they would log on a few days later and the images were back under another seller's name, she said.

"Ours are UK-made and UK-designed and we've got the CAD drawings for all our designs. They go to another family member who does the metal laser cutting and we rust them all on site," she said.

"The biggest worry for us as a company is people see our website and think, 'Oh they've just imported them from China to sell at a higher price'."

She shared examples of her original photos, as seen on her business website

The couple began producing the garden ornaments about seven years ago, alongside their business restoring and selling vintage and antique furniture.

"I'm just exhausted with it all because we work so hard, we've got five kids between the two of us, we're running a business. It's non-stop," said Miss Banham.

"Then you think, if someone's going to steal your design, at least make your own pictures - but they actually steal everything which makes you feel really depressed because there's nothing you can do."

The Temu spokesperson said: "Temu safeguards thousands of brands through a combination of automated detection and manual review.

"We welcome rights holders to register their brand assets with us to enhance proactive screening, and to submit takedown requests through our IP protection portal."