SHEIN opens a new category of pet supplies. Will pets also embrace "fast fashion"?

Presumably, sellers have more or less heard about SHEIN's entry into the pet market in the past few days. I was quite surprised when I first saw it. Even though SHEIN had previously entered the beauty line from fast fashion clothing, its main customer group was still consumers. But now, in a blink of an eye, pets have also become an important customer group for SHEIN.

SHEIN’s decision to enter the pet market must be due to its appreciation of the broad development prospects of the pet economy. In addition, driven by the epidemic isolation, people’s demand for warm companionship in a lonely and isolated living environment has increased, and the number of “poop scoopers” is also increasing.

Industry insiders predict that the global pet market will reach $270 billion by 2025, while the North American pet market will reach $93.1 billion. In addition, Packaged Facts pointed out that 18% of pet product sales in the United States were completed through online channels in 2019, and it is expected that by 2023, e-commerce will account for 23% of sales in the U.S. pet market.

The European and American pet markets have always been the largest part of the global pet market. Therefore, SEHIN, which is familiar with the European and American online consumer markets, chose to open a new category of pet supplies, which can be seen as a "safe move."

Generally speaking, the pet industry can be divided into three subcategories: pet food, pet supplies, and pet care. By observing SHEIN's overseas official website, we can see that the pet products recently launched by SHEIN all belong to the category of pet supplies, including pet clothing, supplies, toys, beds and furniture, as well as bowls and feeders. The product prices also continue SHIEN's usual people-friendly approach, with prices mostly ranging from US$3 to US$8, and the most expensive not exceeding US$15.

(Search results for "Pet" on the SHEIN official website)

The reason why SHEIN specializes in the category of pet products may be related to the strong production capacity of domestic pet products and the complicated procedures for exporting pet food and care products overseas, as well as SHEIN's own rich experience in clothing production.

Take the category of pet clothing for example. Pet clothing is not necessarily more complicated than human clothing. Therefore, with its existing supply chain and channel expansion experience, it will not be too difficult for SHEIN to enter the pet clothing market.

However, the editor has a question. SHEIN, which has always used fast fashion as its "killer weapon", is this time going to let pets take small steps into the fashion circle?

Also on SHEIN’s official website, we can find that SHEIN has opened a separate sub-category called “PETSIN” in the Home & Pets category ↓

Most of the products covered in this category are cat and dog clothing, which is very much like creating a fashionable clothing brand for pets.

Interestingly, the names “SHEIN” and “PETSIN” seem to match well, and they can also be matched in clothing styles. Such “parent-child outfits” will surely be welcomed by many “pet owners”!

However, SHEIN is not the first fast fashion brand to "take the plunge". In fact, as early as 2018, the fast fashion brand H&M had already tried pet fashion clothing in order to save its declining performance, but H&M's entry did not cause much splash, and there are currently only 5 types of pet-related clothing on sale in its US mall, and the prices are much more expensive than SHEIN.

(H&M US official website pet products)

In addition to H&M, PRIMARK, a British fast fashion brand with annual sales of nearly 9 billion, also launched a series of pet clothing products in June last year. However, the number of products on sale on its official website is currently only in the single digits, far less than SHEIN's pet products.

(Primark UK official website pet products)

In addition to the above-mentioned fast fashion brands, there have always been many luxury brands such as Burberry, GUCCI and Moncler that have launched high-end pet products. However, just like the impact that SHEIN has had on traditional fast fashion brands such as ZARA and H&M in terms of price and speed of new product launches, SHEIN's pet clothing will definitely break the market's old view that pet clothing is only a mid- to high-end product, and provide pet owners with truly affordable and fashionable pet products.

SHEIN

PETSIN

Pet Products

Fast Fashion