SHEIN e-commerce is a highly anticipated cross-border e-commerce company. With its unique “ultra-fast fashion” model, it has achieved an annual revenue growth of more than 100% for eight consecutive years and has successfully risen to become a leading brand in the global B2C fast fashion cross-border e-commerce. This article will explore the secret of SHEIN’s success in depth.
1. Independent station model, start brand operation.
SHEIN was founded in 2008. In the early days, it mainly sold wedding dresses, dresses and other products to Europe and the United States through third-party e-commerce platforms. However, in 2012, SHEIN made a major strategic decision to abandon its original business and transform into an independent design, processing and export business of fashionable women’s clothing. It also adopted an independent station model and its first independent station was launched in the United States.
In order to increase the exposure of the website, SHEIN actively registered official accounts on mainstream overseas social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, etc., and launched large-scale advertisements to increase exposure. What is even more unique is that they sent the clothes to overseas Internet celebrities at the time for trial wearing, and posted their feedback on official social media accounts such as Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc. If the feedback is not good, it will be eliminated immediately; on the contrary, the investment will be increased, and the product will be promoted to become a hit with the advantage of traffic. The alliance rebate plan will be further introduced to attract members and accelerate brand promotion and traffic accumulation.
This independent station model allows SHEIN to get rid of the various rules and restrictions of third-party platforms, establish a data system for real-time tracking of global fashion trends, and achieve the goal of 600,000 items available for sale every day and 6,000 new products on average every day. The output even exceeds the total output of ZARA in a year.
2. Small orders and fast returns support the industrial chain.
SHEIN has attracted many overseas consumers with its cost-effective products. However, for fast fashion companies that need to launch a large number of new clothing every day, inventory management has always been a huge challenge. Fortunately, SHEIN introduced the “small order and fast return” production model in the cloud factory platform, which successfully solved the inventory management problem under the huge scale of new products.
Under the “small order and fast return” production model, the entire process of SHEIN’s new clothing from design, production to online sales can be controlled within 7 days at the fastest, which is faster than ZARA’s fastest new product cycle. Unlike ZARA’s starting requirement of at least 1,000 pieces of clothing orders per order, SHEIN can flexibly control the number of clothing orders per order between 100 and 500 pieces, thus establishing a competitive advantage of flexible and rapid response to the market.
When a new product becomes a hit, SHEIN’s intelligent collaborative management system can quickly issue order demand information through the cloud factory platform, and the product can be sold online on a large scale within 3 days at the fastest. This unique condition enables SHEIN’s “small order and fast return” model to be realized, and gradually builds a design team of thousands of people and its own relatively complete supply chain system.
SHEIN’s success comes not only from its unique “ultra-fast fashion” model, but also from its insistence on branded operations, the establishment of a cloud factory platform that responds quickly to the market, and the strong support of Made in China. SHEIN’s success in the field of cross-border e-commerce has not only brought glory to China’s manufacturing industry, but also provided valuable experience and inspiration for other companies. It is not just an e-commerce company, but also the pride of Chinese companies, demonstrating the outstanding strength and global competitiveness of Made in China. Xiyin e-commerce SHEIN is continuing to lead the future of the fashion industry with its shining light.