Some claim that Shein has allegedly copied their designs and sold similar items at a lower cost. It has also been accused of copyright infringement and faces lawsuits from the likes of the maker of Dr Martens boots, although the e-retailer has previously denied any wrongdoing. While she admits she has seen comments online questioning the environmental impact of ultra-fast fashion and how much Shein’s workers are paid, she would buy from the company again in future. Targeting trend (and cost) conscious shoppers on social media, the online-only giant adds a staggering 6,000 new items to its range daily.
According to Whinston, Shein’s 6,000 new styles per day feature is more sustainable than it seems. In a conference, he claimed that these new styles are created in small batches, which allows the company to figure out which of its styles are most popular before they commit to manufacturing large batches of clothing. Along with this, Whinston has shared that Shein plans to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by sending more products by ship than by air. He also said that the brand wishes to make its supply sites more energy efficient and incorporate recycled fibers into its products more often.
- H&M is one of the most popular fast fashion brands worldwide, but the company doesn’t have the best reputation with respect to its treatment of workers and the environment.
- The Times reported that Shein is considering buying Topshop, another fast-fashion retailer based in the US.
- It has also been accused of copyright infringement and faces lawsuits from the likes of the maker of Dr Martens boots, although the e-retailer has previously denied any wrongdoing.
- Similarly, Reuters reported that the Modern Slavery Act of 2015 requires companies who do business in the United Kingdom and bring in more than 36 million pounds of items a year to state the actions they are taking to work against forced labor.
It discovered that Shein’s suppliers often subcontract orders to small workshops inside rundown buildings to cut costs. Because these businesses don’t deal directly with Shein, the company cannot verify their working conditions. According to its 2021 Sustainability and Social Impact Report, Shein uses The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework for its sustainability efforts and social impact. On its website, Shein says that its digital supply chain limits excess inventory and reduces waste.
As of this writing, H&M’s market cap was about $20.5 billion and Zara’s parent company, Inditex, had a market cap of about $114 billion. Channel 4’s recent investigation into the working conditions at Shein exposed deplorable factory conditions, with employees severely overworked and underpaid.
Shein battled rival Temu in dual lawsuits and designers sued the fast-fashion company, alleging that it stole their artwork.
In addition, the fashion retailer made headlines for refusing to sign the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety. This accord tries to ensure that factory workers for fashion brands work in acceptable conditions. In what author and Chinese technology expert Matthew Brennan has branded “real-time retail”, smaller companies along its supply chain are fed information from its in-house tools on what’s trending or how well certain products are performing. Shein is partnering with fellow fast-fashion retailer Forever 21, furthering the retailer’s efforts to expand its product offering beyond Shein-produced items. Forever 21 items will be sold on Shein’s site and Shein is hosting pop-ups in Forever 21 stores.
In July 2020, a scandal sparked when Instagram and Twitter users — notably Marissa Casey Grossman — shared posts that displayed what Shein called a “swastika pendant necklace” being sold on the website (via Refinery29). There was, of course, almost immediate backlash on social media and, according https://www.forexbox.info/investing-vs-trading/ to CBS News, users accused Shein of anti-semitism and demanded people stop supporting their brand. Shein eventually removed the necklace from its website and apologized on social media, claiming on Instagram that the pendant represented a Buddhist symbol for “spirituality and good fortune.”
Huge choice – 600,000 products for sale
Not a single interviewee could provide a contract of employment, which is also illegal, and only one of these sites enforced a minimum income — the other factories enforced a pay-per-item model (a maximum of 47 cents per item). Even though it’s existed for a while, Shein has really increased its popularity since 2020. Apart from the speed and abundance with which the company updates its website, Shein is also unique in its reliance on social media influencers for marketing. As Wired reported, the brand sends free clothes to influencers, who then make content featuring the items they receive — some of which become the famous Shein hauls — and offer discount codes to their followers, from which they often receive a commission. Shein is a huge name on social media, but there is a lot of information and history regarding the brand that most influencers aren’t mentioning.
Critics question Shein’s manufacturing and supply chain practices
An interim report by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party found that Shein and online retailer Temu are responsible for more than 30% of all packages shipped to the US every day without payment of import duties. Companies are exempt from paying US tariffs on products with a retail value less than $800 if they are shipped directly to individual customers. US lawmakers have lobbied to delay Shein’s public offering until they can verify that the company does not benefit from forced labor. Shortly after the company’s $100 billion valuation in 2022, Shein’s sales took a downturn.
Fast fashion company Zara made headlines several years ago for its failure to pay employees months of wages after one of its Turkish factories closed. Over the years, the company has been accused of stealing designs from artists and producing clothing with racially obtuse slogans. These five brands are the first to come to mind when discussing why the fast fashion industry is so controversial. Although the firm has paid out more than $1m (£741,000) to independent designers to date, Twitter still sees complaints from smaller businesses.
Topshop is currently owned by online fashion site ASOS, which purchased the brand in 2021 for $364 million. The survey found that Shein customers buy or resell secondhand clothing online one to four times a year on average. Despite reports that Shein’s clothing is disposable, 62% of respondents reported wearing Shein items 10 or more times and 33% said they get 30 or more wears out of Shein clothes. Analysts have dubbed Shein’s business model “real-time retail” because new designs can take as little as three days to produce, Vox reported. Because of this, there are as many as 600,000 items listed on the site at any given time, according to BBC.
While more renowned companies, like Levi Strauss and Ralph Lauren have taken their accusations against Shein to court, many of the smaller designers who Shein has allegedly stolen from have turned to social media to call out the fast-fashion brand (via Dazed). The company has been in the news previously for paying workers as little as S4 USD per hour. In January 2021, after repeatedly being accused of ripping off independent designers, Shein launched Shein X, a program intended to “inspire and support young designers to chase their dreams,” https://www.day-trading.info/australia-government-bond-10y/ according to the company’s website. Since then, the program has worked with around 1,500 designers and artists from all across the world, according to PR Newswire. Specifically, Shein helps its Shein X designers with manufacturing, marketing, and sales while allowing them ownership over their designs and a piece of their line’s profit. Social media users, various media outlets, and even the Mexican government have criticized some of the products that Shein has carried on its website due to cultural appropriation and cultural insensitivity.
Business of Fashion reported that the company’s sales declined for five months before slightly increasing in December, based on online spending data from Earnest Analytics. It’s come under fire for producing extremely high volumes of garments, which reports say contribute to overcrowded landfills and 6.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. Shein gave fast fashion a whole new meaning by using AI technology to identify trends and an online-only model to churn out thousands of garments in record time. Despite criticism for ignoring the protection of their factory workers, Zara has claimed it is committed to being a better participant in the fashion industry moving forward. A recent investigation into the fast fashion brand Shein uncovered flagrant mistreatment of their factory workers. But Shein is far from the only fast fashion brand that has come under fire for its practices.
It also says it uses digital printing methods that use less water and attempts to sell unsold inventory before donating it. People first began embracing cheaply made clothing in the 60s and 70s as fashion trends began to change more frequently and companies turned to offshore textile manufacturing to cut costs, Fashionista reported. In 2015, Xu shifted the business to focus on fast-fashion apparel and rebranded as Shein, pronounced 5 best brokers for penny stock trading 2021 “she-in.” But the company’s rise didn’t come until 2020, when quarantined shoppers gave a boon to e-commerce. Now the company has filed confidentially to go public, the Wall Street Journal reported. Earlier this month, insiders told Bloomberg that Shein is eyeing a $90 billion valuation. The Chinese brand insists that its method of producing clothes in small batches is more efficient and that little goes to waste.
In terms of its environmental impact, Forever 21 makes clothing with a significant amount of microplastics that are harmful to the environment and non-biodegradable. The public also criticized Forever 21 for canceling and not committing to paying their suppliers for orders made immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic. The company has stated that it plans only to use sustainably sourced, recycled or organic polyester, linen and cotton by 2025. It’s unclear how much this change will affect Zara’s overall environmental impact, but it’s a step in the right direction. The prices of Shein’s products have also raised questions about its environmental footprint and its labour practices, like many of its rivals. Social media users criticised the move though, asking why judges such as fashion designer Christian Siriano and celebrity Khloe Kardashian would attach their names to the project.