Since October 2020, Chinese fast-fashion app Shein was considered the world’s largest online-only retailer and has claimed the top spot of shopping charts from retail giants such as Amazon, H&M and Inditex. According to data presented by OnlineCasinoMaxi, Shein is the leading shopping app in combined downloads from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store worldwide with an estimated 17.52m downloads in July 2021 – more than double of Amazon Shopping’s total downloads.
Founded in 2008 as a wedding dress business known as SheInside, it expanded to general womenswear and rebranded to Shein to make it easier to find online. Since then the Chinese fast-fashion app has grown from strength to strength. As of October 2020, Shein was ranked as the world’s largest retail-only fashion company according to Euromonitor International.
Shein’s success is largely attributed to its aggressive, data-driven “fast-fashion” business model. Shein’s founder and CEO was a successful SEO consultant and specialist, skills that no doubt informed the basis of Shein’s business model. Shein uses an in house algorithm that allows them to mine the web to find out which fashion items are trending in search engines as well as which products potential customers are responding to from competitor’s websites. This data is then used by Shein’s design team to develop new items in almost real-time which according to sources allows them to drop as many as 500 products a day. In comparison, direct competitors such as Boohoo take a week to achieve the same.
Shein also leverages social media better than a lot of its competitors and has proved to be a huge success among Gen Zers who they target on platforms such as Tiktok. In July 2021, Shein was the leading brand globally on Tiktok based on the number of mentions with 6,625 for the month. Shein’s official Tiktok account was also the third-fastest growing brand on the platform, recording 600 per cent growth in July 2021. Shein’s effective use of influencer marketing is also evident on Instagram where it was ranked as the third-leading brand based on the number of mentions from English-speaking influencers.
Rex Pascual, editor at OnlineCasinoMaxi said: “User experience, engagement and retention are also at the forefront of what Shein does so successfully in its journey to prominence. Innovations such as gamification techniques that reward users for each time they log in to the app ensures a loyal and active user base. Shein also has an effective ability to mix media and entertainment into the shopping experience, with events such as virtual fashion shows and live streams keeping existing users engaged with the app, while at the same time attracting untapped customers.”
However, Shein has also come under fire for its blatant copying of products from independent designers, small labels, as well as larger retailers as its own design team is very clearly under extreme pressure to keep releasing new products. Product quality is also found to be poor, causing further distress to those businesses whose designs it has been unlawfully ‘copying’.
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