"Olympic Economy" ignites summer consumption boom, SHEIN sellers' order volume hits new high

"Overall sales have recently increased by 270% month-on-month!"

Wu Sen, the head of a company that specializes in sports and outdoor products, was pleasantly surprised. Since he chose to transform from a pure manufacturing company to a cross-border e-commerce company, his SHEIN store orders have grown by 30-40% every year, with sales of more than 10 million yuan last year. This year, sales have more than doubled due to the sports boom, with an average daily shipment of more than 4,000 orders.

2024 is undoubtedly a big year for sports. Since January, many sports feasts such as the Asian Cup, European Championships, and the F1 Chinese Grand Prix have come one after another. In particular, the Paris Olympics, which combines "fashion sense" and "technological style", is like a "weather vane" among many international events. With its top influence, it has driven the trend of fashion sports and technological sports among the general public.

Recently, media reports have found that the fashion, accessories, sports, digital and other industries behind the summer "four-piece suit" made in China - swimsuits, beach pants, sunglasses, smart sports watches, outdoor or water sports equipment, etc., are continuing to be popular in the European and American markets, becoming the "four major industries" that attract much attention in the summer economy. In particular, sports products have become a well-deserved growth focus driven by seasonal consumption and the Olympic effect. Even many domestic sporting goods industrial belts have welcomed "explosive orders" before the opening of the event. As the popularity of the Summer Olympics rises, a variety of distinctive fashion sports products have also started from domestic industrial belts and sold to the world through cross-border e-commerce platforms such as SHEIN, blowing the "East Wind Going West" of Made in China.

Sports expert "Aimeili", a novice beach pants seller, sold 10,000 pairs in two months after opening the store

Europe, America and Asia prefer water sports and various outdoor games, Brazilians like fishing and camping, Mexicans like cycling, and people in Saudi Arabia are actively purchasing various sportswear ... From the consumer insights of the SHEIN platform during this peak season, we can see that sports enthusiasts from various countries are enjoying the summer and expressing their passion in different ways.

The circulation volume of global sports outdoor products in international trade has shown a significant increase, especially the transaction volume of outdoor sports clothing, equipment and accessories has continued to increase. It is predicted that in 2025, the cross-border e-commerce market size of global sports outdoor products is expected to reach US$248.5 billion, and the global consumer group is still steadily rising.

During the interview , we learned from some SHEIN sellers that markets such as Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Japan contributed the main orders for their sports and outdoor products. Consumers' purchasing enthusiasm is concentrated on sports shoes and clothing, equipment and other peripheral equipment. Products related to water sports, cycling, hiking, camping and other scenarios have seen a significant increase in sales. Swimsuits, swimming trunks, cycling suits, etc. have become highly sought-after hot-selling items.

In Jinjiang, Quanzhou, Fujian, SHEIN seller Huang Rui is spending a "hot" summer. Starting from his own beach pants factory, it only takes four kilometers to drive to Quanzhou's Qingchuang City. Ten years ago, countless e-commerce sellers would buy goods wholesale in Qingchuang City, and then use all kinds of skills to sell products to consumers - Huang Rui was also a member of the "buying army".

The purchase mode made Huang Rui aware of many problems. Huang Rui said: "Sellers are in a hurry to purchase goods, and often they get different styles from different stalls or factories. The quality is uneven and the consumer experience is difficult to guarantee." He realized that in order to make good products and improve the consumer experience, owning his own factory is an inevitable choice. So, he recruited thirty or forty skilled workers, and a new beach pants factory sprang up in 2020, starting self-production and self-sales. In May of this year, Huang Rui, who wanted to open up new growth markets, officially opened a store on the SHEIN platform to enter the overseas market. This decision enabled the factory's production capacity to explode, and a new season of busy new products, production, and harvest kicked off.

As a factory operator, the easiest thing to observe is naturally the change in order volume. After the store opened in May, it coincided with the peak of summer swimwear and beach pants sales. Huang Rui put the styles of his own factory on the SHEIN platform. Within a month, one of the styles sold more than 10,000 pieces. Huang Rui re-colored this product three times, but it still sold more and more. The comment area of ​​the new store was flooded with messages from consumers from all over the world. They excitedly shared photos of themselves wearing beach pants on vacation at the beach in different languages, which also made the novice seller Huang Rui more motivated.

Rapid order processing not only places requirements on the factory's production capacity, but also drives the factory to transform in multiple dimensions such as timeliness and quality. Huang Rui has always adhered to the principle that "to run a business, progress is necessary, and failure to progress is regression." Therefore, despite a short time in office, Huang Rui has already carried out multiple transformations of his own factory with the empowerment of the SHEIN platform. For example, in order to control quality, he strengthened the acceptance and packaging links, and actively avoided basic problems such as messy threads and improper packaging during the production process. Even the most basic packaging bags have been improved four to five times, and each product must be ensured to be flat and flawless before leaving the factory. The increasing number of store fans and praise rates prove that the improvement of product quality has indeed brought obvious results, and also laid a solid foundation for the long-term operation of the store.

Fashion and professionalism are the top priorities for SHEIN sellers

In various summer sports scenarios, users have high requirements for various equipment, which must have at least one characteristic such as sweat absorption, breathability, quick drying, strong stretchability, and cooling. According to a senior cross-border e-commerce industry insider, influenced by the popularity of the Olympics, professional sports products are not only selling well now, but also usually usher in a new sales peak in August every year. If they are superimposed with fashionable visuals, certified fabrics, or updated sports functions, they are more likely to be favored by consumers and help the products stand out.

Wu Sen, a sports protective gear seller, started to engage in cross-border e-commerce through the SHEIN platform in the second half of 2021. Having worked as a foreign trade OEM and supplied goods to many domestic brands, he began to explore cross-border operation methodology in the SHEIN store two years ago. As of May this year, he has just decided to open another brand store on SHEIN.

"I have run my own factory for seven or eight years, with more than 200 workers. However, there has not been much demand for this product in China, so I can only accept some limited foreign trade production orders or domestic trade wholesale orders. However, the SHEIN platform directly brought me a large number of overseas buyers who love sports, which gave me the opportunity to catch up with the Olympic Games."

In his experience, the sports habits of overseas consumer groups are more mature than those in China. For example, many people love to watch NBA. The earliest towel wrist guards came from the Bulls, which immediately made this product popular. The industry produced towel wrist guards everywhere, and a new trend was formed. Overseas consumers also have a strong awareness of sports protection and emphasize scientific exercise, so their requirements for sports products are becoming more and more professional, and their requirements for styles are also getting higher. If the products were not very priced when doing foreign trade orders five years ago (the unit price was mostly US$5-10), then the unit price now can reach more than US$10-22. He also launched many colorful new products at the suggestion of SHEIN employees, which are especially popular with fashion lovers.

As a world-leading cross-border e-commerce platform, SHEIN always adheres to high standards for the sports products sold on the platform, especially reminding and helping sellers to follow specific entry requirements in some mature countries. Wu Sen believes that this high standard is actually a positive screening mechanism. The platform helps sellers to check the standardization of operations, and it can also enable those high-quality factories and products that have a relatively mature and complete system and take the quality route to establish advantages and develop healthily in the market, while naturally eliminating those market competitors that fail to meet the standards and comply with the regulations.

To boost summer sales, platforms and sellers work together to keep up with sports trends

"More and more companies around us are switching from other product tracks to sports and outdoor sports." Wu Sen said frankly, "But from another perspective, the development of the sports industry going overseas is very good now."

Now there are only two days left before the opening of the Paris Olympics , and the discussion and attention on related topics are rising rapidly . Information shows that since a few weeks before the opening of the Olympics, the number of searches on the SHEIN platform for "Olympic" related sports professional products, clothing accessories, home decorations, accessories, etc. has continued to surge. In Google Trends searches, the search volume for Olympic-related words has also skyrocketed.

(Data from Google Trends on the search trends for the 2024 Olympics)

In July of this year , in order to better support sellers to seize the summer sports peak season, the SHEIN platform held the 2024 "Sports Season" in-site event, helping related products to quickly obtain traffic through traffic support and multi-resource display, stimulating product sales and driving sellers' performance growth.

In the cognition of many cross-border practitioners, sports products are not a traditional star category for cross-border export, but looking at the global consumption trend this summer, the potential of sportswear and related products is being continuously released, and the growth rate is rapid. The sports year and cross-border e-commerce each have their own highlights. Domestic sports industry sellers have gone overseas, giving a shot in the arm to the global sports consumer market . "Made in China", which is highly sought after by consumers around the world, is embracing broad prospects. Now in China's industrial chain, you can feel the pulse of the global sports industry.

Olympic Economy

SHEIN