Expanding the market and building the brand, with monthly sales of tens of millions, sellers' business is flourishing on SHEIN

On an overseas social platform, an Italian curly-haired girl posted a short video of her attending her friend's wedding, "Get Ready With Me", which received nearly 200 likes. At the end of the video, she put on delicate makeup, high heels, and a royal blue sequined long evening dress, and went out to witness her best friend's most important day.

The creators of this royal blue dress are two girls from Guangzhou born in the 1990s.

With its back on the Pearl River Delta garment industry, Guangzhou is an indispensable place in the Chinese garment story. From fabrics, production to trade, garment workers from all over the world select patterns at the Zhongda fabric market and purchase wholesale at the Shahe market. Countless garment workshops and factories have taken root here. Walking into the old streets and alleys, you can always hear the sound of sewing machines.

Zhou Zhou and Chen Ling's clothing company is located in Guangzhou. In three years, thanks to cross-border platforms like SHEIN, the large-size dress brand they founded has been sold overseas. With its unique design, fine craftsmanship and high cost-effectiveness, it has become the "battle suit" of countless girls around the world, helping them to achieve affordable "shine" and supporting them to "become the protagonist" on the big day of their lives.

"Being Shaped" and "Self-Growth" Found New Ideas for Going Global on the Cross-Border Platform SHEIN

At first, Zhou Zhou didn’t think of making “dresses”.

Dresses are usually worn at important occasions such as parties, festivals, anniversaries, and weddings. Compared with daily clothing, dresses need to be more designed, with extremely high requirements for the shape and material, and more complicated craftsmanship, but the unit price acceptable to consumers is also higher. In Guangzhou, "Wedding Street" is often where people buy wedding dresses, dresses, and bridesmaid dresses, but there are not many local clothing companies that truly specialize in dresses. In recent years, some companies have taken the initiative to transform from chiffon dresses and sexy short skirts to explore dresses.

Zhou Zhou is one of them. In 2021, she began to come into contact with SHEIN, which is also located in Guangzhou. From scattered wholesale in the domestic market to selling clothing overseas, Zhou Zhou has a new idea of ​​​​"going overseas" by relying on cross-border platforms.

The company was just founded and the team was very new. Zhou Zhou's idea was to find a "cake" that was not shared by many people . SHEIN's buyer handed Zhou Zhou the option of "dress", which was exactly what Zhou Zhou wanted. "We have experience in clothing. Initially, there was a lack of dress products on the platform. We tried to transform based on women's clothing and gradually switched to dresses."

At this critical juncture of clarifying the direction, Zhou Zhou met Chen Ling, who was also born in the 1990s.

Zhou Zhou is responsible for the overall brand positioning, strategy and production, while Chen Ling is responsible for the establishment of the internal management system and overall operations. Zhou Zhou initially focused on the 20+ consumer group who tend to be young and sexy, but through testing on the SHEIN platform, she found that the products they excel in are more popular among mature women over 30. So in addition to the basic chiffon material, they began to use velvet and sequins in large quantities in 2022 to make more differentiation in mainstream dress products.

As the number of dress sellers on the platform increased, Zhou Zhou began to look for new growth opportunities. Through the exploration of Chen Ling and the SHEIN team, they found that among the existing customer base, the most potential consumers were not in Europe and the United States, but in the Middle East. Middle Eastern countries attach great importance to traditions and festivals, and in terms of clothing, in addition to basic styles, they also pursue local characteristics, which is exactly a blank in the Middle Eastern dress market.

“What kind of dresses do Middle Eastern consumers want?”

New questions appeared in their minds. As a platform, SHEIN obviously provided Zhou Zhou and Chen Ling with more than just a channel to sell their products to the international market. More importantly, through the SHEIN team's prediction and empowerment of fashion trends, the brand also received guidance on product design and development. For example, embroidery and printing with ethnic characteristics can better meet the fashion needs of local users, which later became the highlight of Zhou Zhou's brand. In addition to the original styles, Zhou Zhou and the design team began to study elements with regional characteristics and customs, and presented them on the dresses through fine craftsmanship.

When fishtail, slit, straight, boat neck, puff sleeves are combined with chiffon, silk, satin, velvet, sequins, and various beads, tassels, lines, flowers, and ethnic elements, countless combinations are presented to Zhou Zhou. With her love for fashion design, this post-90s girl, who is not a professional, led her team to make products one by one with the support of SHEIN and the moderators.

Zhou Zhou's company has thousands of styles on sale on the SHEIN platform, ranging from women's clothing to dresses, from dresses to fashionable dresses for mature women in different regions. Thanks to the in-depth empowerment of the SHEIN platform, Zhou Zhou's brand has truly grown in line with consumers' needs and preferences.

SHEIN flexible supply chain fission

If Zhou Zhou's product positioning is a process of continuous focus and precision with the help of SHEIN, then the flexible supply chain behind SHEIN is also a magic weapon to achieve this supply and demand matching. As we all know, SHEIN started as a clothing brand, and has deeply integrated and digitally rebuilt the entire process resources from the source of raw materials, product manufacturing, quality inspection, warehousing and logistics, and flexibly and accurately matched supply and production according to the actual needs of the market. Each SKU generally starts with 100-200 pieces, and the number of return orders is determined according to sales trends. If sales do not meet expectations, production will be stopped.

The traditional clothing supply chain is long and has many links. From the purchase of fabrics and accessories to design, production, and processing, it takes two or three months to deliver the first order. In addition, there are often information islands between design and development, garment factories, and sales channels. The capture of trends is delayed, and inaccurate sales forecasts will lead to backlogs of inventory and production waste. Since the process of formal dresses is more complicated and the production cycle is longer, such pain points are more obvious in formal dress production.

The above-mentioned flexible "small order and quick response" model logic of SHEIN's innovative use of digital technology is not only applied to the clothing supply chain of SHEIN's own brand, but also empowers third-party sellers and brands like Zhou Zhou under the platform model. Through SHEIN's flexible on-demand supply model and method empowerment, Zhou Zhou adjusts its product strategy according to market conditions. Since the production cycle of dress products is longer than that of ordinary clothing and the cost investment is higher, Zhou Zhou generally only produces 60-80 pieces for the first order, and then produces return orders based on sales. This not only ensures that there is enough stock for new products, but also allows Zhou Zhou's product production to always be consumer-oriented, reducing the possibility of inventory backlogs and waste.

Compared with daily sales, during the "Black Friday" promotion at the end of each year, overseas consumers will purchase clothing for various parties at the end of the year. For sellers, "Black Friday" is both an opportunity for a surge in sales and an important test of the sellers' production and operation capabilities.

When Chen Ling faced Black Friday for the first time , she did not have a very concrete perception. She just followed SHEIN's advice and launched more new models, and she won the first battle. By this year's Black Friday, Chen Ling had already cooperated with the platform tacitly and started to prepare stocks in September in advance. They increased the stock of styles that performed well in daily trends to ensure that consumers' needs could be responded to and met in a timely manner.

The digitalization and internet-based reconstruction of the supply chain not only brings about improved efficiency and flexible response, but also fully taps the potential of production capacity and puts "efficiency where it counts."

As the sales of the front end have been growing steadily and the production management is in order, Zhou Zhou has taken steps to expand the production capacity. At present, her team has set up three self-owned factories. She can flexibly manage the rhythm of different styles, the upgrading of technology and the production of large quantities, laying a solid foundation for the steady progress of a brand.

Embarking on the road of international brand

Moving towards branding is Zhou Zhou’s original intention as a “design enthusiast”, but it is also the most challenging problem.

How to understand and match the diverse preferences of overseas consumers? How to accurately reach specific circles? How to find suitable and effective marketing methods? How to win attention in brand communication and aesthetics? Behind each pain point are layers of barriers that brands cannot avoid when going overseas, and they need to break through them one by one.

Vision is the core of brand mind-building. Chen Ling believes that product images are the "entrance gate" for consumers to become interested. According to the earliest practices, solid-color backgrounds often fail to bring visual stimulation to consumers, and are not helpful for the scenes and atmosphere required for clothing presentation. Under SHEIN's suggestion, they began to abandon template-style shooting and design their own personalized shooting scenes: autumn and winter gatherings are mostly indoors, so gorgeous elements such as crystal chandeliers and fireplaces should be added, while spring and summer should be lighter, with a combination of white tones and flowers. Create a sense of immersion for consumers from the scene, allowing them to imagine themselves wearing gorgeous clothes to attend important gatherings.

In addition to the shooting scene, choosing the right model will also be of great help to the presentation of brand clothing. At the beginning, the company chose popular models in the industry, but after shooting a few episodes, Chen Ling found that the situation was not ideal. Chen Ling believes that "maybe the original model is more suitable for the expression of sexy style, but our brand hopes to highlight the quality and elegance of the dresses." They boldly use models that are more in line with the brand's tone, and discuss more carefully how to show the charm of each product during the shooting process.

Although Zhou Zhou is new to building a clothing brand in the international market, SHEIN is already a mature player. According to the reminders of SHEIN buyers, Chen Ling and the team will pay attention to various promotional opportunities on the SHEIN website, fill in popular product styles, and bring more exposure to the products. Once a product is released, the products in the brand store will also be driven.

Outside the site, SHEIN will also share high-potential brand products on the platform with overseas community influencers, who will make recommendations based on their own experience and preferences, thereby giving the products and brands additional exposure. This approach is very consistent with the consumption habits of Generation Z, which is to participate in social media discussions, believe in the recommendations of influencers, and form an impression of the brand through the intersection and verification of multiple information.

For example, a celebrity on Instagram recommended Zhou Zhou's dress, which received more than 9,000 likes: "This robe is full of elegant artistry. All the details are handled very delicately. The cut and material can also modify the body shape very well. Wearing this unique and eye-catching dress will definitely make you show mature charm and stand out from the crowd."

With the cooperation of products, operations, vision and traffic, Zhou Zhou's dress brand has a more focused positioning and image in a short period of time: they set the price in the range of 40-80 US dollars. Even though the price of these eye-catching "battle robes" is slightly higher than that of daily dresses, the more expensive items with special craftsmanship are still hot-selling. Chen Ling always believes that "good things can be run". At present, the dress brand they founded nearly three years ago has achieved monthly sales of 10 million to 16 million yuan on the SHEIN platform. Inspired by the overseas market, they are further sorting out the customer groups, styles and elements of different markets, setting up targeted series lines, and operating finely in various markets around the world.

Even now, Zhou Zhou is still the last hurdle in the development of dress styles in the company. When designers and buyers provide new styles, she always gives suggestions based on fashion trends. If she is unsure, she will post it in the group for employees to vote together and absorb more people's understanding of beauty. Chen Ling often browses buyers' shows and comments on the SHEIN platform and sees their dresses appearing at weddings and parties around the world. Chen Ling said: "Dresses are more difficult to craft and produce than daily clothes, but I can often see the meaning it brings to girls from the important occasions shared by consumers."

Zhou Zhou and Chen Ling began to feel the waves caused by the dresses. Just as they wrote in their brand positioning: "Pursuing elegant and simple fashion design, creating cost-effective dresses, and letting every girl shine her own light", this is highly consistent with SHEIN's goal of letting everyone enjoy the beauty of fashion. Sellers and brands in the industrial belt are aiming at the direction of going global and heading for a bright future through digital platforms like SHEIN and the platform's various flexible supply chain empowerments, brand empowerments, online marketing empowerments, and operational empowerments.

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