Launching an independent website! SHEIN is focusing on new categories

Launching an independent website! SHEIN is focusing on new categories

SHEIN has made new moves.

When it comes to SHEIN , the leading global fast fashion e-commerce brand , people in the industry are no strangers. Whenever SHEIN has news, it will inevitably set off a frenzy of discussion, and is also praised by industry insiders as the "ceiling of the industry." Recently, the news that SHEIN has quietly launched an independent underwear website and laid out its luggage business spread in the industry, causing a stir.

SHEIN launches Luvlette, expanding into underwear category

Recently, SHEIN quietly launched the independent website of its underwear brand Luvlette, which mainly sells underwear, panties, home clothes, sports bras and leggings. In terms of categories and prices, Luvlette follows SHEIN's consistent style and focuses on high-cost-effective products. For example, the price of a bra ranges from US$4.9 to US$21. In addition, according to the needs of the European and American markets, the product size design takes into account the plus-size population.

SHEIN's plan to set up an independent underwear brand website was already glimpsed earlier. In 2020, SHEIN registered the Luvlette trademark; in 2021, SHEIN launched brand products on the official website of the main site to test market feedback; and in 2022, the independent site was officially launched. At the same time, Luvlette has opened Facebook , Instagram , TikTok and YouTube accounts. The account with the highest number of followers is Instagram , with 12,000 fans.

So why did SHEIN , which has already taken the lead in the clothing market, choose to enter the underwear market?

The women's clothing category is crowded, opening up new channels for revenue growth. As we all know, SHEIN became popular in the European and American markets with its low-priced women's clothing, but the current pattern of the clothing market has changed. With the attack from the old fast fashion giants in front and the impact from the emerging brands in the back, coupled with the epidemic and the stimulation of consumer demand, the competition in the clothing category on third-party platforms and independent sites is extremely fierce.

Under such circumstances, even SHEIN , which has tens of millions of users and a strong supply chain in China , is also preparing for danger in times of peace, actively expanding new categories and fields, building its own brands, and opening up new revenue channels. Before launching Luvlette , in addition to the two core brands SHEIN and ROMWE, SHEIN also owned the high-end clothing brand MOTF, the beauty brand SHEGLAM, and the pet products brand PETSIN.

The vastness of the underwear market is also attracting the attention of sellers. According to data, in 2020, in the women's underwear market, bra brands surpassed categories such as home clothing and body shaping underwear to become dominant. At present, the global underwear market is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 4.5%, and it is expected that by 2025, the global sales of the underwear market will reach US$325.36 billion.

In addition, European and American consumers' consumption perspectives on underwear products are also changing, from the initial pursuit of beautiful styles to the current emphasis on comfort and practicality, which is stimulating the birth of more emerging underwear brands. It is precisely this market demand that attracted SHEIN to enter this market.

High profits and low costs are also one of the reasons why sellers are attracted to the underwear category. Unlike the fierce competition in the clothing category, the underwear category has advantages such as high customer unit price and low shipping costs, and the needs of overseas consumers are easier for sellers to capture. Therefore, the underwear category has become another choice for many cross-border sellers to deepen their overseas markets.

SHEIN is taking big steps to expand into the luggage market

In addition to launching an independent underwear website, SHEIN is also developing a luggage business to expand its business categories. Earlier, an industry insider revealed that SHEIN is setting up an investment promotion team in Baigou Town, Hebei Province. People who know Baigou know that this is the main production area of ​​luggage, with thousands of luggage companies, and many brands gathered here have already gained popularity in domestic and overseas markets.

After searching on BOSS Direct, the editor found that SHEIN has released recruitment information for positions such as senior buyers, field sales specialists, investment specialists and operations managers . The staff in these positions are mainly responsible for the cross-border e-commerce market. Their work content includes the development and service of local and surrounding supply chain cooperation customers. The work locations are all located in Baigou Town, Gaobeidian City, Baoding, Hebei.

For SHEIN, choosing Baigou as the supply chain origin of its luggage business not only maximizes the industry concentration and brand advantages, but also saves its own manpower, material resources, time and promotion costs. From launching an independent underwear website to developing luggage business, it undoubtedly foreshadows SHEIN's larger cross-border layout.

But for industry insiders, SHEIN's success goes far beyond this. In addition to its flexible supply chain advantage, it also has its own methodology in promotion and operation.

Unlike most sellers who compete for platform traffic, SHEIN focuses on competing for the attention of target customer groups to build its own private traffic. SHEIN first conducts KOC placement and image optimization by understanding the psychology of female consumers in overseas markets, and then gathers target customer groups through social platforms.

Take Instagram as an example. As early as 2021, SHEIN’s global page on Instagram had posted more than 900 posts and the number of interactions reached more than 17 million. By using cute pets and celebrities, it has captured a lot of fans.

It is precisely through the layout of social media that SHEIN has won one precise target customer group after another, and can continuously launch new brands and products while continuously meeting customer needs. So much so that when many sellers are struggling to compete for customer groups, SHEIN has already expanded its products from clothing to beauty, pets, luggage and other categories.

In addition, SHEIN has another moat, which is the MES process management system developed by itself . Through this system, it realizes the standardized management of scattered suppliers, and SHEIN developed this system from the perspective of suppliers. For sellers who want to develop their own platforms, how to open up, intervene in, and manage the upstream supply chain is a knowledge point that needs to be made up.

However, judging from the current situation of SHEIN , hidden worries are gradually emerging. On a certain review website, overseas consumers have given SHEIN hundreds of thousands of reviews, but its score is 3.9 points , and the reviews are very polarized. In addition to 61% of users giving 4 stars and 5 stars, 32% of users gave 1 star and 2 stars. Among the 1-star negative reviews, most are complaints about product quality, logistics and after-sales service.

The polarization of word-of-mouth largely explains that among SHEIN 's audience, some care about price but not quality, while some care about quality but are attracted by low prices. The former are likely to become SHEIN 's loyal customer base, but the latter will not.

Especially after industry giants such as ByteDance and Alibaba set their sights on the cross-border women's clothing market and launched cross-border women's clothing platforms one after another, the market occupied by SHEIN itself was also divided, and many people were worried about its future. But now it seems that this is not the case. In addition to having a supply chain that cooperates well with itself, SHEIN also has its own methodology in promotion and operation. Today's SHEIN is no longer a women's clothing e-commerce platform operating a single category. It is transforming into a comprehensive cross-border e-commerce platform, and there is great potential for future development.

SHEIN

New categories

Independent website