A tiny business owner said she was shocked and heartbroken to discover her card designs being sold on giant online retailer Temu’s website without her knowledge.

Anwen Roberts, who owns design corporation Draenog, said identical versions of her Welsh language products appeared on the Chinese-based site after being copied without permission.

Ms Roberts said it was an added pressure for tiny businesses like hers in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, when she was trying to make a living.

Temu, which has now taken down the cards from its site, said it acted “quickly” when “potential infringements” were reported, and its objective was to protect brands and artist rights.

Temu, which is owned by the Chinese giant PDD Holdings and it was valued earlier this year at $150bn (£117bn), is a marketplace where third-event sellers propose their products directly to customers.

Ms Roberts said it was a “massive shock” to view her work and designs being sold online without her knowledge.

“They were identical and they used the designs we have online,” she told Newyddion S4C.

“It just breaks your heart a bit to recognize someone has used your work, put it out there and is potentially making money from something that I as a tiny business have created.”

Among the cards sold through Temu was nadolig llawen mam a dad – merry Christmas mum and dad in Welsh – featuring two hedgehogs nose to nose while snow falls.

Both the colouring, greeting and designs were the same.

The Temu site card read nadolig llawen mam a dad while Draenog’s is mam a dad nadolig llawen.

Another Temu site card showed a large balloon with penblwydd hapus – joyful birthday – written on it and tied to a dachshund, which was identical to a Draenog card.

Temu, which sells everything from clothes to electronics and furniture, launched in the US in 2022 and later in the UK and the rest of the globe, and ships to about 50 countries.

“They can just receive hundreds of thousands of images, receive them off the internet, make some text, do it really quickly and they miss out the bit of weeks and months and hours of working with tiny businesses like I do and putting a lot of period and vigor in,” said Ms Roberts.

She said the onus on people like her to update issues was frustrating and period-consuming as there was “also the period of having to track them down and knowing your rights”.

UK government body the Intellectual Property Office called IP infringement both a “local and global test” and said it worked with others to “assist tackle the threat it poses to businesses and consumers”.

The IPO said it engaged with major e-commerce stores to remove goods which infringed rights or were counterfit. It also spoke to them to “permanently remove persistent sellers from their platforms” and “published guidance to assist traders protect their IP rights on all major e-commerce stores, including Temu”.

The IPO said: “If people depend that their IP rights are being infringed, or suspect such goods are being offered for sale on e-commerce sites or social media marketplaces, they should make use of the tools these sites provide and always update this.”

Fflur Elin of the Federation of tiny Businesses (FSB), said its research indicated one in five tiny firms experienced copying of their work when using the biggest platforms.

“This is extremely challenging and many often feel powerless when taking disputes to larger companies,” she added.

The FSB wants the UK government to “implement a structure that allows dispute resolution between the larger companies and the tiny businesses and that is paid by a mechanism that raises the fees from the large platforms”.

Temu said it investigated this case and “removed the infringing products that were found”

In a statement it added: “For sellers who repeatedly violate these rules or commit solemn infringements, we permanently ban them from the platform and remove all of their products.

“We have invested heavily in IP [intellectual property] rights protection, expanded our IP throng, and introduced an IP portal and brand protection centre to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of handling infringement claims.

“As a outcome, we resolve over 99% of takedown requests within just a few days, which is faster than the industry average.”