"Mom's style" becomes a trendy item! A 10-year-old clothing factory "turns around" in three months by making SHEIN

As the saying goes, clothing comes first among the four necessities of life. Chaozhou boss Song Jun has been struggling in the crowded track of clothing production. In this field, experienced large manufacturers and big brands have already laid out for many years and built high walls, which seem to block the way out for all latecomers. Many relatives around him once thought that Song Jun's factory was destined to be difficult to maintain and had no ability to surpass the giants in the industry.

It seems that there are many difficulties at present, but from the macro data, the overall trend of textile foreign trade exports is increasing instead of decreasing. According to the data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the national textile industry will achieve a stable customs clearance in 2024, and foreign trade will be stable and progressing overall. In 2024, China's cumulative exports of textiles and clothing will reach 301.1 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 2.8%. In December, textiles and clothing were exported to the world for 28.07 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 11.4%.

Behind the continuous growth of the industry is the transformation of traditional industries driven by innovation. In particular, the entry of cross-border e-commerce has provided key opportunities for traditional enterprises to find growth overseas, and new business opportunities are emerging. The new channel that Song Jun is interested in is the rare opportunity of SHEIN's newly launched "explosive order plan" with tens of billions of traffic .

According to data recently released by Semrush, a global online analytics platform , SHEIN will be the world's most visited clothing and fashion shopping website as of January 2025. The launch of the "Explosive Order Plan" has also strengthened the route for many domestic manufacturers to move towards the peak of globalization.

Old foreign trade factories rely on "nostalgia style" to counterattack overseas

( In November 2024, Song Jun registered a new store on SHEIN)

Last November, Song Jun took some "action". Judging from the sophistication and maturity of the SHEIN store in the picture above, it is almost hard to imagine that it was created by a 40-year-old Chaozhou male boss who has only been overseas for 3 months: the page is full of Art Deco-style shawl products that emerged in the 1920s, with glittering sequins and draped tassels complementing each other, satisfying the imagination of many beauty lovers about dinner parties and red carpets - with these more than 90 products with a full sense of atmosphere, Song Jun's store is becoming a rising star on the SHEIN website .

While other large cross-border companies and store groups are busy trying to capture consumers' attention by distributing their products, satisfying differentiated needs has become a paradise for the rise of new cross-border people, and Song Jun is no exception.

Over the past decade, he has mainly exported sequined dresses through foreign trade channels. According to the 2025 Global Fashion Industry Report released by international consulting firm McKinsey, the top priority for fashion brand managers this year is to find "differentiation", whether through design, customer experience or expanding customer groups. Homogeneous products and styles have made it difficult to capture a larger market. Players in niche markets like Song Jun are more likely to stand out.

"We have been engaged in foreign trade for more than ten years, and some companies on Amazon purchase goods from us. But three months ago we decided to eliminate the middlemen and open a store on SHEIN ourselves."

Song Jun keenly observed that since some of his old customers could also sell products on SHEIN, and SHEIN officials happened to come to Chaoshan to attract investment, the popularity of the cross-border agency operation model allowed factory-type sellers to see the possibility of opening their own stores without middlemen. Therefore, Song Jun began to try to launch some products that were quite different from the existing popular models in the market, starting with shawls, which were less competitive products.

" The current monthly sales volume is over 10,000 pieces, and we ship 300 to 400 pieces every day ," Song Jun said. Thanks to being the source factory, the store has a better grasp of costs and quality. The sequined shawls in the store were put on the shelves just in time for the peak season at the end of last year. A gorgeous shawl wrapped with flowers and vines quickly became a hit in the store, which then drove the sales of other products. Currently, the number of repeat purchases in Song Jun's store has exceeded 1,000, and the rating has remained at a high score of 4.9 .

With the latest styles, the best prices and sufficient production capacity, the advantages of factory-type enterprises in opening cross-border stores are evident.

The reason why the sales volume was able to grow quickly in the early stage of the store opening is that Song Jun believes that there is still a lot of room for development of niche products on the SHEIN platform. "The manufacturing process of our products is relatively complicated. Ordinary products are generally cut and sewn, using some chiffon or other materials, but our sequins require a lot of delicate hand-sewing." He revealed that the products he has launched are specially prepared for user groups who have banquet needs, are keen on socializing and prefer retro styles. It is expected that after the first store is polished and stabilized, it can gradually expand from a single style of shawls to a richer variety of matching products.

"There are still a lot of personalized demands on SHEIN, and you can make money by selecting products on demand"

It is understood that in order to drive more outstanding domestic sellers and products to go overseas, SHEIN launched the "Rare Gravity" plan since 2023, strengthening cooperation with many domestic industrial belts, and is committed to cultivating new and high-quality products of industrial belt sellers into cross-border "explosive products", and providing sellers of different categories with corresponding systematic training, buyer assistance, official communities, etc. Thousands of Chaoshan factories like Song Jun have successively become beneficiaries of this industrial belt cooperation plan.

In addition, SHEIN has prepared a number of innovative and practical operational tools for sellers, such as testing new products, aggregating new products, product diagnosis, stocking suggestions , etc. , to help sellers scientifically open funds, stock and conduct operations in a digital way, and reduce unnecessary waste.

According to recent media reports, SHEIN has launched a new "explosive order plan", which will allocate tens of billions of on-site and off-site traffic at the beginning of the new year, aiming to support and accelerate the global sales of platform sellers.

The strong support of the platform is very important. Song Jun also cares about the fact that consumers on SHEIN are younger and have greater potential than those on other e-commerce platforms. When talking about the follow-up plan in the interview, Song Jun said that he would like to try semi-managed products : since heavy-crafted clothing products are usually heavier than ordinary ones (most products weigh more than 0.5 kilograms each), if semi-managed products are used, there will be an opportunity to sell more beautiful and higher-profit products to overseas consumers.

"Consumers are young, which means SHEIN will have a large number of personalized demands and many opportunities. I can make money if I choose the right products." Song Jun said, "Although some of my colleagues may worry that if they stock up overseas and cannot be sold, they will become unsalable, I don't have such concerns at the moment. As long as we combine the creation of new products with marketing activities on the platform, we can take a two-pronged approach and sales will have better feedback."

Since February this year , governments across the country have successively introduced new policies to support the private economy. Guangdong Province has also established a Private Economy Development Bureau. A package of hard-core policies are releasing good news to boost the confidence of private entrepreneurs. The private economy has great potential. With the continued release of policy dividends, coupled with the addition of resources from large cross-border platforms such as SHEIN, the global development of small and medium-sized sellers will inevitably usher in an era of opportunity for systematic improvement.

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