's ‘Fast Fashion’
Shopping haul!! Now don’t tell me this doesn’t excite you. Not many of us would turn down a cheap haul of clothes. What if we take it up a notch and make it online, add trendy outfits to your wardrobe. That’s exactly what the Chinese fast-fashion brand Shein, did. As the name suggests the brand focuses on fast supply of dupes of trendy high-end fashion. It exploits the teenage mindset to own trendy outfits and steal the spotlight. Shein’s online app has surpassed Amazon in the total number of downloads, in the USA, becoming the favourite shopping platform of many American teens. ‘SheInside’ was originally started in 2008 and was rebranded in 2015 as ‘Shein’. The brand has seen a meteoric rise from 2020.
FAST FASHION:
Fast fashion gained popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the rise of brands like Zara and H&M, who revolutionised the fashion industry by adopting increasingly shorter design-manufacturing-distribution cycles. These cycles were reduced from months to just a few weeks, thanks to efficient logistics and strategically placed flagship stores in major cities worldwide. These brands offered affordable and trendy clothing options with a wide range of designs.
The foundation of fast fashion rested on several key principles. Taking Zara as an example, the company capitalised on quickly adopting trends set by high-fashion brands. It achieved this by implementing shorter manufacturing cycles, efficient logistics, and significant investments in prominent stores situated in city centres globally.
This business model facilitated rapid turnover by providing a diverse selection of inexpensive garments that changed on a weekly basis. The speed, variety, and convenience offered by fast fashion brands became their primary advantages.
ULTRA FAST FASHION:
capturing fashion trends at an even faster pace by shortening manufacturing cycles and promptly offering items on their online platforms. Consequently, they heavily invest in logistics to efficiently distribute clothes to millions of customers worldwide, without the need for physical stores.
This evolution eventually leads to the SHEIN business model. With the increasing prominence of social media platforms like TikTok during the 2020s, SHEIN further refined its ability to capture fashion trends and shorten cycles rapidly.
This concept underpins the essence of real-time retail, where the entire process, from the emergence of fashion trends to clothing collections, can be condensed to just a few days.
The Ultra Fashion business model represents a progression from fast fashion, incorporating a significant online component. While traditional fast-fashion retailers heavily invest in logistics and physical retail stores, the ultra-fast fashion model primarily operates online, focusing on logistics, warehousing, and mobile-based digital presence.
The key strength of ultra-fast fashion lies in its robust online presence, particularly driven by mobile e-commerce. This facilitates a feedback loop between users' fashion trend feedback, manufacturing processes, and the quick availability of items on the retailer's digital platforms.
In summary, the ultra-fast fashion retailer directs its resources towards
ONLINE PRESENCE
Real-time retail refers to the immediate acquisition, examination, and dissemination of information to provide consumers with a seamless and personalised shopping experience. This signifies a notable emerging trend, building upon the concepts of fast fashion (where design to manufacturing was accomplished in a matter of weeks) and ultra-fast fashion (which further reduced the design-manufacturing cycle). Real-time retail takes fashion trends and transforms them into clothing collections within a few days or a maximum of one week.
The founder Chris Xu, himself was a SEO specialist. In the initial days he used the knowledge he gained through his career for Shein. They have also captured the social media age better than any other fashion company, using Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok intuitively to promote their products and partnering with hundreds of influencers on well thought-out promotional campaigns.
KEY STATISTICS
In the past five years, Shein has seen its valuation skyrocket, as it broke into the US and European market. It went from a $5 billion valuation in 2019 to $100 billion in early 2022, although that has since declined to $64 billion in 2023.
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Shein generated $30 billion in 2022, a 91% increase on the $15.7 billion it made in 2021
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It has an estimated 74.7 million active shoppers, 13.7 million are based in the US
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Shein was downloaded 200 million times in 2022, making it the the most downloaded shopping app of that year
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It was recently valued at $68 billion ahead of a potential late 2023 IPO
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Most of Shein’s growth has come in the past two years. Revenue increased 398% from 2019 to 2021.
Shein Annual Revenue 2016 to 2022 ($bn)
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Shein’s early growth came primarily from India and Saudi Arabia, but in the past two years Brazil Shein was the third most downloaded shopping app in 2021, behind Shopee and Meesho.
Year | Revenue ($bn) |
|---|---|
2022 | 30 |
2021 | 15.7 |
2020 | 9.81 |
2019 | 3.15 |
2018 | 1.99 |
2017 | 1.55 |
2016 | 0.61 |
Shein Annual Downloads 2018 to 2022 (mil)
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Shein’s early growth came primarily from India and Saudi Arabia, but in the past two years Brazil Shein was the third most downloaded shopping app in 2021, behind Shopee and Meesho.
Year | Downloads (mil) |
|---|---|
2022 | 200 |
2021 | 157.1 |
2020 | 103.1 |
2019 | 57.2 |
2018 | 48.4 |
Shein Annual Users 2017 to 2022 (mil)
Year | Users (mil) |
|---|---|
2022 | 74.7 |
2021 | 43.7 |
2020 | 15.5 |
2019 | 5.6 |
2018 | 4.8 |
2017 | 2.8 |
TAKE AWAYS:
Shein has opened a new chapter in the book of the fashion industry. Making shopping not only desirable but stress free as well. The success of Shein lies in their planned execution of marketing strategies. They used social media to gain popularity and to stay on the trend constantly. SEO has helped them to attract customers to their platform and their web tactics have made it possible to retain those customers. The digital media has so much potential, if you identify that and use it to your advantage the results can be fruitful. The best example for this is Shein and their ultra fast-fashion.