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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Business -> 
Turbo-charged online fashion takes on Zara, H&M
    2020-10-20  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

SHEIN may be the biggest shopping site you’ve never heard of.

The Chinese fast fashion player is encroaching on the territory of more established rivals like Zara and H&M. It has become the largest, purely online, fashion company in the world measured by sales of self-branded products, according to Euromonitor.

Nanjing-based Shein, founded in 2008, is aiming squarely at the “Gen Z” social media generation, using influencers on Instagram and TikTok, and discount codes, to attract younger shoppers in an increasingly crowded fashion market.

It offers low-cost styles, uploading hundreds of new designs to its app every week. The price for a dress is around half that of Zara, according to a recent Societe Generale price survey.

“You can save money, which is important when buying clothes as the fashions change so quickly,” said Rebeca Rondon, a 23-year-old student in Valencia, Spain, whose Instagram page compares dozens of styles from Shein and Zara head-to-head.

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted online sales at retailers, giving online-only players like Shein, Britain’s Asos and Germany’s Zalando an edge over Inditex-owned Zara and H&M which have big city-center stores.

In September, the Shein app saw 10.3 million downloads globally from across the App Store and Google Play, Sensor Tower data shows. In comparison, H&M’s mobile app hit about 2.5 million, and Zara saw 2 million.

To date, Shein has reached 229.4 million downloads, versus H&M’s 123.5 million and Zara’s 90.6 million, the data shows.

In the week of Sept. 27-Oct. 3, Shein was the most downloaded shopping app globally on iPhones, according to analytics platform App Annie. It ranked in the top 10 in the United States, Brazil, Australia, Britain and Saudi Arabia.

Privately owned Shein, which also sells on Amazon, does not publicly disclose sales or other financial figures.

It has backing from investors including IDG Capital and Sequoia Capital China, according to PitchBook capital market data.

Although Shein is gaining more followers, it has limited visibility compared with the likes of Zara and H&M. It has no domestic presence in China, where online shoppers go to Alibaba’s Taobao and to Pinduoduo for clothes at bargain prices.

Inditex revolutionized the fashion industry in the 1990s by responding quickly to trends and speeding designs to stores using factories close to its headquarters in Spain.

Shein also works with hundreds of factories in close proximity to its Nanjing headquarters, according to a China-based industry source with knowledge of the company’s business practices.

The Chinese company aims to get designs ready for shipping in three days, according to the source. Three days is a significant compression of Inditex’s lead time, from drawing board to store, which is around three weeks according to the Spanish company.

Nonetheless Shein faces a tough task to make inroads in a crowded online market where both Asos and Zalando have reported surges in sales this year.(SD-Agencies)

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