Ultra Fast Fashion is the name given to brands that have taken fast fashion and decided to do it faster and cheaper. It has forced the quality of the garments down and reduced workers' pay below the legal framework in China. Today, Shein is one of the worst brands out there if you're concerned about its ethical and environmental impact.
Shein ["She-in"] was funded in 2008 under the name of "SheInside" by Chris Xu (Xu Yangtian) and two other men. It was doing drop-sale wedding dresses until it branched out into general women's wear in around 2015 and bought Romwe. Then only with Chris Xu. With early customers primarily coming from Saudi Arabia and India, interest soon hit Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S, as well as customers on the European market. From being worth $15 Billion in 2020, it grew to be valued at nearly $100 Billions by investors during the Covid-19 pandemic, and experienced a +390% revenue between 2019-2022. Most of its growth happened in 2020 as more people leaned into online shopping. Shein is now "one of the world's most valuable private companies," according to the Wall Street Journal in 2022. Observer, claims it to be the "third most valuable private company in the world," only preceded by TikTok and Elon Musk.
What are the issues with Shein?
With such success going for it, Shein is not a company associated with the ethical treatment of workers or environmental sustainability.
On the forefront, it lacks transparency, a quality that will allow others a view into their practices, and the ability to access if what they are doing is up to industry standards, regional laws, and their own claims about themselves. Little is known about Shein, its funder, or its practices, and it discloses no meaningful information on its page.
In 2021, Public Eye published one of the first claims about workers' experience in the Shein Supply Chain. It has thousands of small supplier factories for them in Guangzhou, China, close to where its headquarters were relocated in 2017. Workers were assigned more than a 75 hours working week with no extra overtime payment or working contract, breaching Chinese Labor laws and Shein's Supplier Code of Conduct. Additionally, they only have 1-2 free days a month. The workforce consisted of "migrant workers" (people who have moved into cities to work at a higher pay rate than in the provinces to gain money for their families) who are paid per produced item of clothing. The pay was lower than in similar factories, but also have a lower quality requirement in production. In reality, what is being offered to the worker, be it a minimum pay, a base rate, or only pay per piece varies between the factories, but don't mistake it for fair wages.
The textile industry is disproportionately affecting women, and Shein is no different. The main workforce consists of skilled seamstresses, able to keep up with the rapid change in demand, techniques, and patterns required to support the Business-to-Customer (B2C) model of Shein. More work is outsourced to other regions where the wages are even lower. The most technical parts are still being produced in Guangzhou, making the workers increasingly concerned about the reduction in the number of pieces they are able to complete, and thus their income.
The Bussiness-to-Consumer model
The Bussiness-to-Consumer model is unique in the fast fashion world, and one of the reasons Shein is able to produce successfully at the quantities it is. The change began in 2014 when Shein went from drop-sale to becoming a fully integrated retailer. It pioneered micro-batch-production, where it produced 50-100 pieces of an item and tested it on the market using algorithm-based marketing to a hyper-specific audience. Shein has 300-400 main suppliers, and works with over a thousand sub-contractors. If an item was successful, they would order more of it. This is how Shein has been able to launch an average of 2 thousand new items every day across its platform with a lower cost loss if a product isn't successful. By using marketing data in real-time, it can have a turnaround time of 5-7 days for new products, creating an increasing number of mini-trends.
The Power of Social Media
Shein's success is not entirely due to its business model, but also its marketing model. From the start, it has used social media to spread the word about its existence, early finding its way into expensive YouTube "hauls" before TikTok took the reins of the trend and blew it up to a large number of young consumers, primarily below 30 years of age, and Gen-Z. Shein can also flaunt a larger selection of sizes, styles, and some of the lowest prices, drawing in consumers which might find themselves alienated in the traditional fast fashion market.
Consumers are lured to their website with the promise of large and numerous discounts on already cheap clothing. For example, you get a voucher if you download their app, free shipping if you spend x amount of money on your order, or free returns within 60 days if you simply sign up for their mailing list, letting them market more of their products to you. Other vouchers can be found if you use their "daily check-in" feature on the app, or leave a review on a product. Shein WANTS YOU to stay in touch and spread the word, and it is making sure you do not miss it and that you keep spending your money in quantities on the brand. This is some of what has gotten Shein ranked as the "most manipulative fast-fashion site" applying eight dark patterns to influence the consumer to make purchases and make them share their data (for discounts).
This model of customer engagement works exceptionally well for eCommerce as it keeps the consumer coming back. However, it is a black hole if you look at how it is affecting consumer behavior towards overconsumption. Especially, young consumers are easily influenced and want to stay on-trend. To be able to do that at the speed it is moving online, affordable clothes are a must for most people.
Shein is also known for using influencers to sell its product. Influencers help create a parasocial relationship between the person and the consumer (yourself) which often leads to the consumer trusting the word of the influencer without attaching critical thinking. The young demographic associated with Shein consumers is easily exploited in that way.
You can read more about their Digital Marketing Strategy here.
QUANTITY OVER QUALITY
Quantity over quality is one of the principles running Shein, but it is also causing severe environmental damage. First, they primarily use petroleum-based textiles, meaning synthetics aka plastics like polyester and nylon. Plastic shed microplastic throughout its entire lifespan. Still, it is a fabric favored for its cheap cost and predictability compared to natural fabrics. Synthetics are also known for being durable, however, in a production model where clothes are made in such low quality they barely have any resell value, durability is not a favorable quality.
That is also why an increasing number of Shein items make their way to the secondhand market. Secondhand buyers are expressing increasing despair over the lack of quality in secondhand stores. More is becoming fast fashion, and an increasing amount is from Shein. The secondhand market is in direct correlation with the firsthand market, meaning that what is being bought and discarded (donated) firsthand is what is making it into the secondhand market. With a high consumption rate and low-quality articles that don't always stay true to their description, items easily move on when a consumer isn't satisfied with their buy or finds it wearable for nothing more than a short period of time.
What isn't being redistributed secondhand across the globe with various ethical and environmental concerns, is likely to end up in a landfill in the global south or burned.
Other concerns
✤ Finds of lead and heavy metals in children's and adult's clothes and accessories (2021)
✤ Theft of small-business designs (2021)
✤ Appropriating religious symbols as fashion (2022)
UNTOLD: Inside the Shein Machine
Tomorrow, on Monday, October 17th, a new documentary is being released on All4 taking us inside Shein for the first time. This article was (finally) written in anticipation of the release, knowing it will add more light to the opaque supply chain of Shein. You can click here to read the Twitter thread and get updated on some of the main finds. I will do a review\summary of the documentary when the time comes.
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