Can you get a good DIY kit from Temu? A few months back, you could find a handful of DIY electric guitar kits by searching on Temu. Today the search will return dozens of kits, along with a selection of bodies, necks, and other components. Are these worth considering, especially if you are a beginning DIY electric guitar kit builder?
I had ordered a few items from Temu when they first came on the scene. At that time, prices often seemed ridiculously low. But what I received was pretty good quality, including several electric guitar gig bags. Since that time, prices have increased and somewhat normalized. Now I was beginning to see some pretty good prices on DIY electric guitar kits.
What Are Temu’s DIY Electric Guitar Kits?
Early on I considered a DIY guitar kit from Temu. Some of them looked kind of sketchy. One of them I remember had, according to the picture, a bolt-on style neck with what was clearly a body with a cavity for a set neck. Sometimes the pickups or hardware did not match what would go with the body design shown. But the inventory today is pretty standard with a variety of styles.
While a lot of guitar kits are displayed on the Temu website, you will notice that many of them are the same, even though they are offered at different prices. This is a lot like the selection on the Walmart website, where the exact same kits are offered at different price points by various Chinese vendors that seem to appear and then disappear. Temu, on the other hand, does not usually identify third party vendors, though the same products are offered at different price points.
So to see what a DIY electric guitar kit from Temu would be like, I decided to give it a shot. I did a search, sorted it by price low to high, then clicked on the lowest priced kit offered (there were a lot of unfinished bodies listed before I got to the first kit). It looked like something worth trying, so I threw it in my cart.
This one was a Strat-style with two humbucker pickups and back mounted controls, so lots of visible wood and no pickguard. I like that. It had a mahogany body, and I envisioned a nice dye and easy wipe-on poly finish. But get this – it was marked as a Glarry kit, shipping from a local warehouse with delivery in 3 to 7 business days. So I placed the order.
My Temu Experience
My order was placed on a Wednesday at 9:00am local time. I immediately received an email acknowledgement, and the next morning another email telling me the order had shipped. To my surprise, this order of a Glarry DIY electric guitar kit was being delivered by Amazon!
I did some checking. Amazon does, indeed, have this product in their offering. It was priced a little higher than what I paid at Temu, and a discount “coupon” was offered. I checked the Glarry website, where this kit is listed at a still higher price than Amazon. And when I went back to the Temu website, this particular kit was no longer available. Glarry also offers this style guitar in their standard lineup.
I received my Glarry DIY electric guitar kit, ordered from Temu and delivered by Amazon, on Saturday evening – just three days, a little more than 80 hours, after placing my order.
The order was very well packed, and the outer box relatively unmarked by shipment (pretty standard for Amazon, they do a good job). The Glarry packaging was better than most low-end guitar kits, with a Styrofoam shell cutout for the body and separate compartments for the neck and other components. The body and neck were each inside a protective sleeve, and individual components were in their own small bag inside a larger bag. This Glarry kit even included a strap and pick.
I am not focusing on the Glarry kit itself here, but I will tell you that the neck was very nice – straight, flat, and with no sharp fret ends. All of the component parts were present, though I can’t really tell you about their quality until I have built this kit.
But the body in this DIY electric guitar kit was a different story. I have no doubt at all that this was a factory second product. I have purchased and built a number of “blem” kits from Solo and from an eBay vendor for Bargain Musician (no longer in business). This body was in worse shape than the “blem” kits. It had repaired glue spots on the edge, plus an unrepaired shallow crack on the top. There were numerous rough edges and chips along the edge and at the rear cavities. I love working with mahogany, but this was probably the poorest guitar body I have ever had.
Temu Support
Now I could see how Temu would respond. First, I took a few pictures. Then I went to the Temu website and selected my order. The only option listed was to “Return/Refund.” I really did not want to do that – this was a very low priced kit, it was no longer offered so I could not simply replace it. So I looked on the Temu menu and found the Support Center. From there, I found the option to either return the product for a full refund, or accept a partial refund and keep the product (that option may have been available on the other page, but I did not notice).
I opted for keeping the product and accepting a partial refund. A chatbot (I never encountered a real person) asked me to upload pictures. As soon as I did that, I was told the refund was being processed. But what was it? I had no idea what refund they were giving. Was it couple of dollars? 10%? 50%? Whatever it was, I had no say in the matter nor the opportunity to negotiate.
Within five minutes, I received an email that my refund was processed. It worked out to 30%, which in this case was acceptable to me. The process was very easy. Overall, my Temu experience was pretty good even though the product I received was not that great. I still believe they sold me a blemished product, a factory second.
A Better Option: Amazon
If you are shopping for a good deal on a beginner DIY electric guitar kit, you may be taking a risk with Temu (or Alibaba, or even eBay). For a broad selection and a purchase you can feel safe making, AxeKit recommends Amazon. You will find great brands like Leo Jaymz, Bexgears, Fistrock, Solo, and yes, even Glarry. And you will see some lesser-known or even generic products that are still covered by Amazon’s A-to-Z Guarantee.
Products from Amazon ship quickly, and often are delivered by Amazon’s own delivery service. They handle their packages with care, unlike some of the other delivery companies, including the Post Office. I’m sure you’ve seen some of the horror stories about lost and damaged shipments, particularly around the holidays.
The DIY electric guitar kit you get from Amazon can usually be returned at no expense to you if there are any issues, or even if you just change your mind and want something. Be sure to check out some of the Leo Jaymz and Fistrock kits I have built from Amazon purchases.
Have you attempted a DIY electric guitar kit you purchased from Temu? What was your experience? Leave us a comment below.