SHEIN joins the first tier of global unicorns! New financing revealed

Since the wave of account bans, independent websites have become a new way out for many sellers, especially since this year, Amazon sellers have reported that the number of orders and sales has continued to decline, and the desire to try switching to independent websites has been rekindled.

When talking about independent websites, we have to mention SHEIN , the benchmark in the cross-border fast fashion field . In the industry, SHEIN's position is second to none and can be regarded as a template for a number of sellers and companies. Relevant data shows that SHEIN has surpassed Amazon to become the most downloaded APP in the world. In the United States, SHEIN's downloads have exceeded 32 million times.

SHEIN responds to financing rumors

Good news keeps coming. Recently, news about SHEIN's financing has been coming from the industry one after another.

According to relevant information, SHEIN is planning a new round of financing and is currently negotiating with potential investors including equity firm General Atlantic. The plan is to raise US$1 billion. If the financing is successful, SHEIN's market value will reach US$100 billion.

What does a $100 billion valuation mean? In the fast-moving consumer goods industry, $100 billion would be twice the current market value of Uniqlo's parent company, Fast Retailing, and greater than the combined market value of Zara's parent company, Indite Group, and H&M Group.

Data shows that there are only two unicorns in China with a valuation of more than 100 billion US dollars, namely ByteDance and Ant Group , of which ByteDance is valued at 2.3 trillion yuan. In other words, if SHEIN succeeds in this round of financing, it will become the world's third largest unicorn company.

According to previous reports, SHEIN's valuation in August 2020 was only US$15 billion, and it failed to rank among the top 20 unicorns in the world. But according to this data, SHEIN has increased its valuation by 7 times in just one and a half years, a growth rate far exceeding that of other startups in the world.

However, in response to the rumors about financing, SHEIN also responded, saying that " it will not comment on market rumors and the company has no IPO plans ."

In fact, this is not the first time that SHEIN has been reported to be seeking financing.

In 2013, SHEIN received US$5 million in Series A financing; in 2015, SHEIN completed RMB 300 million in Series B financing; in 2018, SHEIN completed its Series C financing and disclosed its valuation for the first time at US$2.5 billion; in 2019, SHEIN received US$500 million in Series D financing with a valuation of US$5 billion; in August 2020, SHEIN announced the completion of its Series E financing, with its valuation rising to US$15 billion.

At the same time, rumors that SHEIN is seeking to go public in the United States have never stopped.

In early 2020, there were reports that SHEIN was considering restarting its plan to go public in the United States and was communicating with multiple institutions about the plan. In addition, regarding the rumors circulating in the industry some time ago about the change of nationality of the founder of SHEIN, some industry insiders speculated whether this was a precursor to SHEIN's attempt to go public again.

Looking back at SHEIN's development path, it can be called low-key, but it is undeniable that SHEIN's pace of progress has become more and more steady in recent years. Especially during the epidemic, SHEIN's expansion has also become faster.

With over 10 million fans and more downloads than Amazon, SHEIN is too low-key!

In sharp contrast to its low-key and mysterious image in China, SHEIN's development in overseas markets is extremely hot.

On overseas social platforms, SHEIN has captured a large number of loyal fans with its own charm. Its total number of Instagram fans exceeds 26 million and its Facebook account has nearly 24 million fans . The stickiness and conversion rate of independent site fans can be imagined.

Overseas consumers' love for SHEIN goes beyond this. In mid-2021, SHEIN has replaced Amazon to become the most downloaded shopping app on iOS and Android platforms in the United States; in March of this year, foreign media reported that SHEIN has become the most downloaded APP in the world , with Amazon ranking second and Walmart third.

SHEIN, which mainly operates in overseas markets and focuses on clothing, with women's clothing accounting for more than 60%, can no longer conceal its own brilliance.

With the advent of the epidemic in 2020, many offline fast-moving consumer goods suffered a blow, but SHEIN, which specializes in online sales, on the contrary, ushered in its own highlight moment. According to the data, SHEIN's annual revenue in 2020 has been close to US$10 billion (about RMB 65.3 billion), and this is the eighth consecutive year that SHEIN's revenue has achieved a growth of more than 100%.

Many industry insiders believe that there are two important reasons why SHEIN can rise so quickly:

Fast and cheap fashion. Open the SHEIN website, and you will see trousers for $4 and dresses for $10 everywhere. With its low prices, SHEIN has captured many young girls in overseas lower-tier markets. The powerful and mature flexible supply chain system allows SHEIN to maintain a relatively fast frequency of new product launches.

Accurately grasp the dividend period of marketing environment change. Initially, SHEIN relied on the traffic dividend of Google and Facebook and completed capital accumulation through advertising. Then, SHEIN began to deploy social media marketing and began to enjoy dividends when overseas influencer marketing was still in the blue ocean period with very low marketing costs. To this day, it still attaches great importance to cooperation with local KOLs and KOCs.

In fact, it is not just SHEIN. Countless players are pouring into the cross-border e-commerce track with the support of China's cross-border trade policies and the attraction of a strong supply chain.

Gold Rush: A large number of players are entering the cross-border e-commerce market

According to relevant data , global e-commerce channel retail sales reached US$4.28 trillion in 2020, and the growth rate will remain high in the future, with a compound annual growth rate of 10% expected from 2020 to 2024. The development prospects of China's cross-border e-commerce market should not be underestimated. Since 2020, the scale has reached 12.5 trillion yuan, and it is expected to continue to grow in the future.

With the booming development of global cross-border e-commerce, many players have flocked in and companies in the industry have also been favored by capital.

In the first half of 2021, there were quite a few companies in the cross-border e-commerce circle that raised funds, up to 29 cases, with the amount reaching 7.81 billion yuan . This year, many e-commerce platforms, SaaS service providers, and logistics service providers have successively obtained hundreds of millions of yuan in financing; Alibaba, ByteDance and other large companies have laid out cross-border e-commerce; e-commerce brands and platforms have frequently reported on entering the capital market or planning IPOs; the success of unicorn company SHEIN; the industry has been hot for a while, and it is also encouraging more players to flock to this track.

After going through the stages of traditional foreign trade and mobile overseas expansion, domestic entrepreneurs mainly in the new retail and consumer industries have seen another future for going overseas : letting Chinese manufacturing go abroad. At this point, the cross-border business of Chinese companies is ushering in the third wave of dividends, which is what we call "brand going overseas".

However, for sellers, the road to overseas expansion is not smooth due to the influence of overseas market environment, consumer preferences and local cultural customs, and sellers also need to pay attention to these key points. First, while focusing on products, build brands and bring more premiums to brands through differentiated products; strengthen supply chain advantages and use the location advantages and R&D advantages of Made in China to better serve consumers; in addition to these key points, refined operations and localized transformation are indispensable for sellers who want to conquer the overseas market.

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