Integrated empowerment helps Chinese merchants expand overseas. SHEIN becomes the third largest online fashion retailer in the United States

Recently, Statista, a global data and business intelligence platform, cited the latest data from the ECDB website, showing that SHEIN ranks third among the largest online fashion retailers in the United States, after Amazon and Walmart, and ahead of traditional retail giants Macy's and Nike. SHEIN has also become the only Chinese company among the top five online fashion retailers in the United States.

According to data from the ECDB website, Amazon and Walmart are the top two fashion retailers in the United States. Both retailers sell all kinds of goods online and in physical stores, with net fashion sales reaching US$12.3 billion and US$8.9 billion respectively in 2023. SHEIN ranks second, and has surpassed Macy's, the fourth-ranked traditional US retailer, and Nike, the fifth-ranked one, with net fashion sales of US$6.4 billion and US$4.5 billion respectively in 2023, thanks to its rich, diverse, cost-effective fashion products and high-quality and convenient services.

To create new quality productivity and brand power for overseas expansion, SHEIN continues to promote independent brand building and sustainable development

At present, SHEIN has formed a unique model of "self-owned brand + platform" dual-engine development. In the field of self-owned brands, SHEIN has created self-owned fashion brands including SHEIN by relying on innovative flexible on-demand supply and online retail models. At the same time, SHEIN continues to use digital technology to enable the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries. For many years, it has continued to deeply empower the informatization and digital transformation of suppliers, making the overall information flow, matching and coordination more efficient, which can effectively reduce inventory, reduce waste and improve the overall efficiency of the industry while meeting consumers' fashion needs.

It is reported that SHEIN has formed a flexible supply chain system with Guangdong as the core, which not only provides digital technology tools to suppliers for free, but also provides full-process training and guidance involving enterprise construction, business management, personnel quality improvement, etc. to help traditional clothing factories transform into modern enterprises. In order to better empower suppliers, SHEIN has also built a "Clothing Manufacturing Innovation Research Center" of more than 60,000 square meters in Guangzhou, continuously exploring the construction of digital standard factories, and conducting innovative research on manufacturing processes, equipment, fabrics, etc. All these research and development results are exported and open to its suppliers.

According to statistics, as of the end of 2023, SHEIN's self-service subsidies helped more than 130 supplier factories expand and renovate 430,000 square meters of factory buildings, benefiting 22,000 people, and held more than 600 supplier empowerment training sessions; its Juxingguang and other public welfare funds supported more than 400 supplier employee families.

In addition to using digital technology to change traditional clothing manufacturing and reduce waste at the source, SHEIN's own brand runs through the entire process of green and sustainable development concepts. Recently, SHEIN's environmentally friendly denim fabrics produced using cold transfer denim technology have been certified by the international authority Bureau Veritas. Compared with traditional denim fabric production methods, SHEIN's cold transfer denim technology can save up to 70.5% of water. It is a green transformation for denim production and an important exploration for SHEIN to establish itself in the high-quality and sustainable development of the fashion industry.

In addition, the SHEIN brand has been promoting the use of more environmentally friendly and sustainable fabrics, continuously exploring and applying digital processes to reduce energy consumption, using more recycled materials for packaging, launching second-hand trading platforms to promote sustainable fashion cycles, etc. The brand has been promoting a sustainable strategy throughout the entire product life cycle and process, helping to reduce carbon emissions and deeply embedding green development in all aspects of production and operations. This has also become SHEIN's "invisible magic weapon" to lead the development of global sustainable fashion.

In the opinion of industry insiders, SHEIN has broken the monopoly of international fashion brands and companies in the European and American markets by relying on its innovative model and firmly grasped advantages in technology, brand, marketing, etc. Its industry-leading innovative flexible on-demand model and continuously improving product and brand strength are the embodiment of the domestic fashion industry's continuous rise in brand, technology and R&D towards both ends of the smile curve, and it is also a microcosm of the growing global influence of China's fashion industry.

In the "Top 10 Fastest Growing Brands in the United States in 2023" released by Morning Consult, an authoritative American consulting firm , SHEIN was selected along with international leading brands such as ChatGPT, OpenAI, Facebook, and CocaCola, becoming the only Chinese brand on the list and the only fashion brand selected worldwide.

The platform model continues to expand and integrates capabilities to help more merchants and brands expand overseas with high quality

On the other hand, based on its huge sales network, mature marketing experience and innovative supply chain system, SHEIN continues to develop and iterate, continuously expanding the platform model to introduce more third-party sellers and brands, and facilitating the cross-border export and international development of more high-quality products and brands. Through agency operation empowerment and independent operation of various forms of cooperation, it provides third-party merchants who are good at making products and brands with a "menu-style" option for going overseas, helping merchants to expand into the international market and bring more consumption choices to overseas consumers.

To this end, SHEIN has launched integrated empowerment measures to help sellers expand overseas with high quality. The SHEIN platform provides sellers with a series of growth empowerments including a full-process training system, operations and tool empowerment, one-stop fulfillment support, order and payment support, low investment costs, and improved comprehensive competitiveness, and has increased support for "new and excellent merchants."

Last year, SHEIN launched the "Rare Gravity" million sellers plan and the 500-city industry belt overseas expansion plan to help more Chinese manufacturing and Chinese brands go overseas with high quality. Since 2021, the SHEIN platform has covered sellers in more than 300 cities across the country.

Under the SHEIN platform model, the flexible on-demand supply chain model that SHEIN excels in is also empowered to spread to more industrial belt merchants. From home furnishings to accessories, luggage, etc., more industrial belt merchants, driven by SHEIN, use digital technology to innovate traditional manufacturing and supply models, driving the digital upgrade and quality and efficiency improvement of more industrial belts.

Recently, SHEIN announced that it will fully open its self-operation model in 9 European countries (Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom) and Mexico. There is also news that SHEIN will launch a semi-managed model overseas in May, allowing merchants to prepare goods overseas, fulfill contracts independently, select products for listing, and submit prices independently. SHEIN will assist in operations, and the first stop of the semi-managed model will be the United States. With the continuous expansion of SHEIN's full-category and multi-mode, more and different types of Chinese sellers and brands are expected to achieve global development and brand expansion more conveniently with the help of the SHEIN platform. In Piper Sandler's survey last fall, SHEIN became the second most popular shopping website for young people in the United States.

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