Shein, the Chinese online fashion company, managed to gain ground in the textile industry and became bigger than its toughest competition in the clothing industry. fast fashion.
Brands that already had land in the area such as Zara or H&M, both with a presence in Chile and many countries around the world, were surpassed by the company that sells everything through the Internet.
Despite its youth as a company, with only 14 years in the market, Shein established itself as strong competition for those who seemed to have the market in their favor, with a meteoric growth that does not end and that even brings news that could change the things for the signature.
Shein: most valuable of Zara and H&M together
“It reaches a young audience, which changes its mind from one day to the next and consumes on impulse. In networks, photos and videos with their clothes are uploaded, which generates a sense of belonging to a community”, comments Sucharita Kodali, sales analyst at Forrester in The country.
This is because the Asian company adopted a strategy that helped position itself as the revolutionary fast fashion company, with new products every day, according to fashion trends, but also offering its consumers exactly what they want.
In this way, Shein managed to be recently valued at 100,000 million dollars, well above its strongest competition such as Zara, which came to be valued at 62,000 million dollars, or H&M, the Swedish firm that is well below with 18,500 million dollars. dollars, reported The Wall Street Journal.
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The company, founded in 2008, began selling women’s clothing under another brand, Sheinside, however, over the years it has positioned itself in the sale of low-cost clothing throughout the world. But its boom came in the midst of a pandemic, when it established itself as the largest fast fashion distributor in the United States.
Its growth is so strong that its application is one of the most downloaded in 50 countries. Even in the United States it is above apps like TikTok, Instagram, Twitter or Amazon.
Likewise, it is presented as one of the best valued emerging companies on the planet and is only surpassed by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok and SpaceX, a company of Elon Musk.
Until now, the company has only been successful, however, its origin and why we know so little about its operation are still a mystery to the world.
What we know about Shein
It is certain that at least once a week (or a day) you see Shein ads on social networks like Facebook or websites, you have bought in their app or even now you see some of their clothes. However, how much information is available on this Chinese company? Very little.
It is known that it was born as an e-commerce in the city of Nanjing, in 2008, specializing in wedding dresses.
Originally, it had three founders, but in 2015, when the company was emerging, one of them, Xu Yangtian, decided to buy the Shein domain and there, it did not stop growing.
According to Five daysthe key is in Xu, an expert in online marketing, data and SEO, with contacts in clothing factories in China, the perfect mix to make an emerging e-commerce the most important worldwide.
He changed the name, but also expanded the sale of wedding dresses to clothes of all kinds and accessories. In addition, it came up with a production process that involves items being manufactured in locations less than 5 hours from its main headquarters in Guangzhou, and designed and produced within 10 days.
They have a 100% digital strategy, with low prices that attract consumers from all over the world, especially those who do not have so much money to obtain beautiful designs. This, together with a powerful loyalty program, to obtain discounts and thus, be able to buy more.
The fact that they are not yet listed on the United States stock exchange exempts them from having to report their work style or make their operation transparent.
In fact, their way of working has been questioned, considering the high volume of production and the low cost of their products.
The dangers of fast fashion
Although the news is positive for Shein, its global impact and growth has also brought environmental consequences and reports of property theft or labor exploitation, he said. ELLE.
Users are attracted by the extraordinary design, in all the ways that their consumers want to get their clothes and a very low cost versus the physical market, which is attractive to the young public, who do not have access to a lot of money.
Likewise, by offering a wide variety of sizes, Shein has become attractive to a large part of the population that feels forgotten by traditional clothing stores.
However, the quality of most of the garments is not optimal and some only last one season, so they are then discarded as rubbish, jeopardizing the company’s sustainability strategy and the quality of its products.
“In surveys, Gen Z is often the most concerned about the environment, but also the most likely to buy fast fashion. At some point, you have to choose a side.” Vogue.
That, without considering that there is a percentage of the clothes that are not sold. Dana Thomas noted in her book Fashionopolis that 20% of the clothing that is manufactured each year is not purchased by anyone and ends up in places like the dunes of the Atacama desert in Chile, where there are tons of clothing, he stated Smoda.
But it is not only environmental pollution that is of concern, the Swiss human rights organization Public Eye has accused Shein of maintaining poor working conditions for its workers.
The organization developed a report on labor exploitation that implies that some employees come to work 75 hours a week, which can be translated into 15 hours a day on a day from Monday to Friday, it stated. The country.
Other questions to Shein also arose after it refused to make the working conditions of its supply chain in the United Kingdom transparent, something required by law.
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Despite everything, the brand continues to grow and monopolize space in the digital world, but apparently also in the physical world because according to Antenna 3 is about to open its first store in Madrid, Spain, although only for four days in a format known by “pop up”.