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On social media, the brand is fuelling a consumer frenzy the likes of which we have rarely seen. Every day, hordes of influencers film themselves unboxing pouches or parcels. Out spill heaps of translucent bags bearing the Shein logo, containing their finds. Floral, green and blue crop tops, skirts, jackets, as well as false eyelashes, wigs, jewellery and trinkets… Everything features in these unboxing sessions, which have become something of a ritual. Taken together, these videos have racked up over 10 billion views on TikTok alone. This is just one of the many records held by the Chinese ultra-fast fashion company, which employs 10,000 people.
The name of Shein’s mysterious founder, Xu Yangtian – also known as Chris Xu – first appeared in 2008 in the company registers of Nanjing (Nankin), not far from Shanghai. For a time, this online marketing professional seemed to be searching for the right formula, before Shein’s identity began to take shape at the turn of the 2010s. It was then that he turned his attention to the online sale of clothing and accessories, pushing two hallmarks of fast fashion further than ever before: an overwhelming range of products and ultra-low prices. On average, the company says it uploads 8,000 new designs every day – yet another record. On the brand’s website and mobile app, products are sold at unbeatable prices: a tight-fitting T-shirt for €4.99, a candy-pink dress for €10.99…
Freshly made and barely packaged, Shein’s clothes are flying off to all four corners of the globe. And it’s working. In just a few years, it has established itself as a major player in the fashion industry in the United States and Europe, its two main markets. A 100 per cent digital ‘Zara 2.0’ born in China – something that was by no means a foregone conclusion: “Before Shein, the country didn’t have any global fashion brands like other Asian nations. China struggled to understand consumer tastes, particularly those in Western Europe and America. Shein has solved that problem,” says John Deighton, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School.
When it comes to the stock market, is it New York or London?
The Financial Times estimates that in 2023, the Chinese powerhouse more than doubled its profits, reaching a staggering $2 billion. The figure has not been confirmed by Shein, which is not known for its transparency. Since its inception, the company has never disclosed its financial results, leaving the field open to speculation. Nevertheless, the performance reported by the British daily would relegate Sweden’s H&M to the status of a minor player and bring the Chinese firm closer to the Spanish giant Inditex – and its famous brand Zara – in terms of profits.
Especially as Shein is unlikely to stop whilst things are going so well. In recent months, rumours have been rife about a possible initial public offering. This scenario seems all the more plausible given that the company has, incidentally, moved its headquarters to Singapore. In the United States, where trade tensions with China are running high, the prospect of a listing on Wall Street has been met with a lukewarm reception. Hence the speculation that the company might turn to the City of London instead. In February, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, reportedly met with Shein’s executive chairman, Donald Tang. Was this a way of sealing the deal? The Conservative minister’s office emphasises that the final decision does not rest with him, whilst stating that it is “proud that London has always been regarded as a hub for international companies’ IPOs”. This is no coincidence: “The London Stock Exchange is losing many companies to the US. It would be delighted to welcome such a major one,” says Maureen Hinton, an independent consultant specialising in the UK retail sector.
Will Shein finally decide to lift a corner of the thick veil surrounding it in order to go ahead with its initial public offering? In any case, the Chinese giant is reportedly expecting a great deal from the operation: a valuation of between 80 and 90 billion dollars, according to leaks reported by Bloomberg in late 2023. This would enable it to sell ever more, primarily through aggressive marketing tactics. “Shein specialises in encouraging consumption. Its platforms are full of countdowns and spin-the-wheel games that push people to buy,” explains Pierre Condamine, campaigner for Friends of the Earth. And it does so even if it means misleading buyers at times. According to the Swiss NGO Public Eye and the Fédération romande des consommateurs, Shein was by far the fashion website that made the most use of ‘dark patterns’ in 2022. These digital tricks with their ominous-sounding name aim to manipulate customers into buying, for example by overusing pop-ups offering time-limited discount codes.
TikTok, a powerful ally
The brand also owes much of its breakthrough to a major ally: TikTok. “It was propelled by the surge in popularity of the Chinese social media platform. Few people knew how to use it at the time,” admits Yann Rivoallan, president of the French Federation of Women’s Ready-to-Wear (FFPAPF). Thanks to an army of small and medium-sized influencers with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers, Shein is flooding the platform with its products and reaching the youngest audience.
To achieve this, it has no qualms about spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising. According to a study by Sensor Tower, in the third quarter of 2023 it ranked among the top 10 biggest spenders in the United States. On Meta – the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – Shein is the third-largest advertiser, behind its rival Temu and the market leader, Amazon.
A digital addiction that is evident throughout the entire manufacturing process. “Shein has managed to crack the code by inventing a new way of operating,” marvels Sandrine Zerbib, a specialist in Chinese retail. When it comes to design, the group claims that its teams create all the products. The reality is quite different: only a computer can generate 8,000 products a day. “Shein employs a few designers, but relies primarily on a high-performance algorithm developed by Syte. It acts as a genuine ‘researcher’, capable of identifying major trends as well as niche products,” explains Audrey Millet, a researcher at the University of Oslo. When contacted, the Israeli company did not respond. However, a video posted on its website confirms links with Shein: in it, Syte demonstrates the benefits of its “visual search” solution for customers keen to unearth that dream item amongst a sea of new arrivals.
‘We’ve never come across a company of this scale with such a high level of automation. The figures suggest that Shein is highly effective at identifying trends,’ agrees Frédéric Glaize, an industrial property consultant at the firm Plasseraud IP. Even if it means veering towards plagiarism. H&M, Levi’s, Uniqlo… Complaints of counterfeiting are rife, particularly in the United States. Even Zara, which has usually been on the receiving end of such accusations, is now feeling the heat. “The number of summonses is relatively high, and there have already been convictions. This is somewhat unusual, as legal proceedings often take a long time,” the lawyer acknowledges.
Less than ideal working conditions
Faced with this backlash, Shein is setting aside millions of dollars. But the bill could quickly mount, given that each legal case in the United States can cost between 1 and 2 million dollars, according to Frédéric Glaize’s estimates. At the same time, the group is trialling a marketplace system in several countries. This is a handy tool for clearing its name of the numerous accusations – including those of plagiarism – that hang over it, though the company prefers to present it as a means of developing new product categories and selling its business model to third parties. Is this enough to reassure investors ahead of an initial public offering? “Shein is looking for sources of revenue that are less open to criticism than in the past,” confirms John Deighton.
Especially as plagiarism is not the only criticism levelled against it. On the manufacturing side, Shein stands out for producing each new item in small batches, with runs of 150 to 200 units. If the designs prove popular, production is doubled, or even tripled, and so on. “We’ve moved from a predictive model to a real-time model,” observes Yann Rivoallan. Barely ten days pass between the design of a garment and its going on sale. “Our stock levels are therefore extremely low. This translates into significant savings for our customers,” says Peter Pernot-Day, Shein’s chief strategy officer.
According to Nicolas Jin, co-founder of the First Bridge Ventures fund, the company is simply applying business models that are already widespread in its home country: “Shein has simply replicated what already existed on the Chinese market and brought it to overseas customers [Editor’s note: it does not sell its products in China]. The reason its prices are so low is that there is fierce competition in China, with over 40,000 textile factories of varying sizes and more than 7 million manufacturing companies.”
The brand employs 5,000 small and medium-sized suppliers across the country. This is particularly the case in Guangzhou (Canton), the third most populous city, situated north of Hong Kong, where a handful of media outlets have reported on poor working conditions.
“Shein sources its goods from numerous informal workshops, where safety conditions are a cause for concern. These workshops generally employ a few dozen workers, who are required to be extremely flexible and are mostly paid on a piecework basis. Whilst they can earn up to the equivalent of 1,330 euros a month, they work around seventy-five hours a week, often with just one day off a month,” says Géraldine Viret, media manager at Public Eye, whose investigators have also infiltrated the network of subcontractors. “We carried out 2,800 audits in 2022. “When we identify violations, we take immediate action to rectify the problem, even if it means terminating the supplier’s contract,” retorts the management. They also pledge to “maintain close ties with contracted manufacturers”, who are required to adhere to a “statement of principles” and to “sign a code of conduct prohibiting forced labour”.
France leads the way against Shein
Shein also has some environmental fires to put out. By encouraging people to consume ever more new clothes with a limited lifespan, it has replaced Zara and H&M as the symbol of fashion’s excesses, running counter to calls for moderation. “The arrival of this highly competitive new player has almost served to polish up the image of these brands,” remarks Serge Carreira, a senior lecturer at Sciences Po Paris, with a touch of humour. To silence its critics, Shein is attempting to turn its business model into an asset. By producing its clothes in small batches, isn’t it solving the problem of unsold stock that is poisoning the planet?
‘The brand challenges the common misconception that unsold stock is the environmental problem in the fashion industry. In fact, the real problem is the volume of items sold! Clothing consumption has skyrocketed since the 1980s. Every year, 1.4 billion items are sold in France alone,’ protests Julia Faure, founder of Loom and co-chair of the Impact France Movement. According to calculations by Friends of the Earth, Shein emits between 15,000 and 20,000 tonnes of CO₂ every day just from producing a few hundred items of its thousands of new designs.
The backlash has shifted to the legislative arena. And France is taking the lead. On 14 March, the National Assembly caught Shein off guard by voting almost unanimously in favour of a bill aimed at curbing the expansion of fast fashion. In particular, it provides for a bonus-malus system for clothing and a ban on advertising. Whilst she insists that the bill she championed did not specifically target Shein, Renaissance MP Anne-Cécile Violland acknowledges that the brand’s arrival on the market “has accelerated awareness”.
As proof that the elected representative struck a chord, the platform commissioned a lobbying firm to contact, one by one, the senators who will soon be considering the issue. Could this inspire other countries? “The whole world was watching us. We were able to show them that it is possible to take action against a company with a turnover of more than 45 billion dollars,” says Yann Rivoallan of the FFPAPF. In late April, the European Commission announced that it was adding SheIn to the list of platforms subject to enhanced scrutiny under the new Digital Services Act (DSA).
The company will now be subject to increased scrutiny from Brussels and will have four months to comply with these rules, particularly regarding the protection of minors. Will putting a spanner in the works of the Chinese behemoth be enough? If it does materialise, the victory could be short-lived. Less affected by the threat due to its greater diversification, the Chinese e-commerce platform Temu – which many describe as “a worse version of Shein” – is already lying in wait to take over.