It’s rare to hear that someone is beating Amazon, but there’s a name you might have seen mentioned a few times before: Shein.
In May 2021, Shein’s app usurped Amazon’s as the top e-commerce app in the shopping niche.
They are now one of the world’s largest fashion companies. It was founded in 2012, and its history is unclear.
What is clear is their gravity in the fashion world, with a reported $10 billion in sales in 2020.
Here’s one of the ‘secrets’ for Shein
They are more like Amazon than other fashion retailers like H&M or Zara.
They work with over 6,000 Chinese clothing factories, and those factories are Amazon’s loss.
In 2013 Amazon aggressively recruited Chinese manufacturers.
However, issues such as complaints about counterfeit, dangerous products, and fake product reviews put a dent in Amazon’s relationship with these factories.
This opened the door for Shein to partner with those factories (and more).
But instead of copying Amazon, Shein tested concepts already popular in the Chinese market like gamification, live streams, flash sales, and more.
Shein also has insane product churn, with 70% of products being listed on the website in the last three months.
To put things into perspective, that number is 40% for H&M and 53% for Zara.
How can they do such a high volume of styles?
Their software.
It does a great job at connecting with manufacturers.
So much so that even a student could start designing clothing very quickly.
If you have a fashion brand, studying Shein is a must.
You won’t be able to replicate what Shein does, but we’re sure you will learn valuable lessons.
And something we found funny
Shein sells many of its products on Amazon…
Even with Amazon as a direct competitor, it’s tough to ignore the huge amount of traffic and customers they can provide.
