SHEIN and Zhongce jointly promote brand innovation and intellectual property public welfare services to help cross-border merchants expand overseas with high quality

SHEIN continues to increase its "Rare Gravity" plan to empower merchants. On April 23, at the "2024 Intellectual Property Promotion Week Launch and Guangzhou Intellectual Property Achievement Exhibition" event jointly hosted by the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Work Leading Group Office, Guangzhou Market Supervision Administration (Intellectual Property Office), Guangzhou Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism Bureau, etc., SHEIN announced that it would jointly launch the "Rare Gravity·Innovation Era" IP empowerment plan with the China Strategic Intellectual Property Research Institute to help overseas merchants strengthen brand innovation and intellectual property protection, and help Chinese brands and products go overseas and develop globally.

Since 2014, cross-border e-commerce has been included in the "Government Work Report" for 11 consecutive years, and has become a new driving force for foreign trade growth and a "new force" in global trade. The latest data from the General Administration of Customs shows that in the first quarter of this year, China's cross-border e-commerce imports and exports reached 577.6 billion yuan, an increase of 9.6%. With the rapid growth of China's cross-border e-commerce transaction scale, intellectual property disputes in the cross-border e-commerce field are increasing. In the innovation-driven global economy, intellectual property protection has become an important consideration for global decision makers and merchants, and has also become a major factor affecting the healthy and sustainable development of the cross-border e-commerce industry.

"Building its own brand has always been one of SHEIN's core strategies. Its independent brands have also been recognized and loved by consumers overseas. With its own brand as the core, SHEIN has established an intellectual property protection system that integrates copyright, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets . In the process of coping with international competition, we have deeply realized the important role of intellectual property in brand and innovation protection. " Sun Xun, senior vice president of SHEIN, said, "Combining the development and experience of SHEIN's own brand, we launched the 'Rare Gravitation•Innovation Era' IP empowerment plan. SHEIN will work with the China Strategic Intellectual Property Research Institute to provide brand and intellectual property protection public welfare services for cross-border merchants through education and training, practical tool development, one-on-one compliance and legal consulting over a three-year period, helping more Chinese brands and merchants to comply with intellectual property rights, protect and innovate in the process of internationalization. "

The plan is expected to comprehensively improve the level of intellectual property application, management and protection of small and medium-sized businesses covered , so that they have a basic awareness of cross-border intellectual property protection and the ability to respond to and resolve typical intellectual property issues, help innovation and brand building, and enable more Chinese brands to go overseas and develop internationally.

SHEIN started as an independent clothing fashion brand in 2012, and has now grown into a fashion and lifestyle online retailer driven by the dual mode of "own brand + platform". Driven by the dual mode, SHEIN has always focused on the integrated empowerment of merchants, comprehensively improving the level and ability of merchants to cope with cross-border trade, and participating in global development with high quality.

Under the private label model, by leveraging the advantages of China's apparel manufacturing industry, SHEIN's own brand has carried out digital transformation of the entire process and the entire chain, creating an industry-leading flexible and on-demand "small order quick response" model for clothing, enabling the brand to supply in a timely manner according to the fashion needs of the market and consumers and greatly reduce inventory waste , making the product more cost-effective. In this process, for more than ten years, the SHEIN brand has continued to empower suppliers in all aspects such as technological innovation, operation management, factory transformation support and community public welfare services to help traditional clothing factories transform into modern and digitally managed enterprises. To this end, SHEIN has also specially built a "Clothing Manufacturing Innovation Research Center" of more than 60,000 square meters in Panyu, Guangzhou, to continuously research and explore lean and digital solutions and share research and development results with suppliers. By the end of 2023 , SHEIN has helped more than 130 factories expand and renovate 430,000 square meters of factory buildings, benefiting 22,000 people, and held more than 600 supplier management training sessions; its public welfare funds such as Juxingguang provide financial support for supplier workers' families facing financial difficulties.

With its product and brand advantages, SHEIN's own brand has now grown into one of the world's top four fashion brands, on par with UNIQLO and ZARA, and has been selected as one of the top ten growing brands in the United States in 2023, on par with global top brands such as ChatGPT and CocaCola. It is the only Chinese brand selected and the only fashion brand selected worldwide.

In addition to building its own brand, SHEIN also focuses on developing external IP resources, and has cooperated with more than 220 well-known IPs around the world, including Warner. In 2023 alone, SHEIN has developed more than 10,000 co-branded IP products. And through the SHEIN X Designer Empowerment Program, it supports more than 4,600 independent designers and artists to build their own brands from flexible on-demand production to sales and marketing.

At the same time, with the continuous expansion of the platform model, SHEIN uses its accumulated global extensive sales network, professional brand and marketing experience, and mature supply chain system to continue to drive more third-party brand sellers and industrial belts to go overseas through the platform model. SHEIN has specially launched the "Rare Gravity" million sellers plan and the national 500-city industrial belt overseas plan to help more Chinese manufacturing and Chinese brands go overseas with high quality, and provide sellers with a series of growth empowerments including full-process training system, operation and tool empowerment, one-stop fulfillment support, order and settlement support, low investment costs, and comprehensive competitiveness improvement, and strengthen support for "new and excellent merchants" . From 2021 to the present, the SHEIN platform has covered more than 300 city industrial belt sellers across the country , including the fashion and industrialization cooperation of Guizhou Miao embroidery craftsmanship, and the design, production and overseas sales of Miao embroidery fashion products.

The international market is complex and diverse, with differences in policies, regulations, customs, customer preferences, etc. Merchants will encounter many challenges in the process of going overseas. Sun Xun said that the IP empowerment of brand innovation and intellectual property protection launched for cross-border merchants is aimed at better helping merchants to participate in and adapt to cross-border trade, empowering merchants to grow throughout their life cycle, helping more Chinese manufacturing and Chinese brands to create new quality productivity and brand power, and promoting their high-quality overseas expansion.

Zhang Chi, General Manager of Zhongce, said that as an intellectual property think tank, Zhongce Research Institute is very concerned about the support and protection of intellectual property rights for industrial development. The IP empowerment public welfare plan in cooperation with SHEIN is a beneficial exploration of promoting and disseminating intellectual property rights in a form that fits the characteristics of the industry by uniting leading industry companies and chain-leading companies. It is hoped that through the implementation of this project, it will provide strong support for the intellectual property protection and application practices of Chinese merchants going overseas, and enhance their international competitiveness. At the same time, it is also hoped that through this public welfare plan, more companies and organizations will be inspired to pay attention to intellectual property rights, form a good atmosphere for the whole society to respect and protect intellectual property rights, and promote the high-quality development of the industry.

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