A 100 billion unicorn was born in China's cross-border e-commerce field, and shein was valued at $30 billion (about 193 billion yuan). In the first half of 2021, its app received more than 81 million downloads worldwide, topping the list of iOS shopping apps in 54 countries and ranking first among Android devices in 13 countries. It reached 17.52 million downloads in July, more than double that of Amazon (7.46 million).
Many people may not have heard of this brand. If you want to understand SHEIN, you must start with the founder Xu Yangtian. He was born in zibo, Shandong province in the 1980s to an ordinary family. After graduating from the Department of International Trade of Qingdao University of Science and Technology, he worked on SEO (search engine optimization) at a cross-border e-commerce marketing service company in Nanjing. During this period, he also co-founded Dianwei Information Technology Co., Ltd.
Around 2008, in the embryonic stage of China's cross-border e-commerce industry, wedding dresses with a cost of tens of yuan became "stepping stones". Xu Yangtian also wanted to develop in this direction, and as a result, he disagreed with the two partners. So he took the team "solo" and founded ZZKKO.
After successfully earning the first pot of gold, Xu Yangtian gradually gave up the wedding dress business with low repurchase rate, fully invested in a wider and more frequent women's clothing category, and changed its name to SHEINside (later renamed SHEIN for convenience of search and remembered by consumers). In recent years, it has extended its business to many categories such as home, accessories, beauty, men's wear, children's wear and so on.
Today, SHEIN's products have been exported to more than 220 countries and regions, and have entered many markets such as North America, Europe, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia and South America. Last year' sales revenue was nearly US$10 billion (about 64.4 billion yuan), achieving more than 100% growth for eight consecutive years. In the first quarter of this year, average monthly sales reached $1.2 billion. Measured by private label merchandise sales, it is the world's largest pure online retail fashion company, surpassing H&M and Inditex Group (Zara parent company).
In the 2021 BrandZ China Top 50 Overseas Brands, SHEIN overpowered well-known brands such as Tencent, Anker Innovation, Tsingtao Beer, and DJI, ranking 11th. At the same time, it has also been selected into the "China Unicorn Enterprise Research Report 2021" and "2021 Nanjing Unicorn Enterprise List".
Why is SHEIN on fire overseas? Mainly due to the positioning of high quality and low price. $6 backstroke tops, $9 miniskirts, $12 dresses... Products are generally sold for less than $20, sometimes with promotions, even as low as $2. One user said: "I buy the same things I see at H&M, but at a cheaper price." ”
The reason why it can be affordable and fashionable is based on a strong Chinese supply chain system, with more than 2,000 suppliers. SHEIN's production schedule is only 10-15 days, while zara et al. disclose an average span of three weeks. Last year, more than 150,000 new products were added, surpassing Zara's annual SKU in less than 2 months.
It is worth mentioning that users can not only buy high-quality and inexpensive products on the platform, but also earn points and save money by logging in to the app, watching live broadcasts, participating in fashion design competitions, etc. The experience is like a game, and it's addictive.
Xu Yangtian's early experience in SEO also played an important role in the construction of SHEIN. Through the self-developed "tracking system", we can capture the product maps of various clothing retail websites and analyze the current fashion trends. The data such as patterns, colors, price changes, fabrics, styles, etc. are summarized and analyzed, and then directly feedback to the factory to order materials for production. The whole process basically eliminates all the middlemen.
In addition, Xu Yangtian started from KOLs very early, established a marketing model recommended by Internet celebrities, and cooperated with celebrities such as "Fruit Sister" Katy Perry, Nick Jonas, and Beaver Hailey. As of now, SHEIN has more than 20 million followers on Instagram alone, more than 10 million followers on Facebook, and nearly 9.1 billion videos on TikTok.
It has to be said that SHEIN has successfully achieved a dimensionality reduction attack on Zara and H&M with this set of highly effective marketing promotion and low-price sales model. They plan to surpass Zara in sales within two years to "prove that they are more competitive online than offline." According to people familiar with the matter, SHEIN is growing rapidly in emerging markets, especially in Southeast Asia. If we can meet the 120% growth target, we may be able to achieve it this year.