SHEIN's "Hope Gravity" plan for empowered merchants continues to increase.
On April 23, at the "2024 Intellectual Property Publicity Week Launch and Guangzhou Intellectual Property Achievement Exhibition" jointly sponsored by the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Work Leading Group Office, Guangzhou Municipal Administration for Market Regulation (Intellectual Property Office), Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, etc., SHEIN announced that it would jointly launch the "Gravity • Innovation Discipline" with Zhongce Intellectual Property Research Institute The IP empowerment program helps overseas merchants strengthen brand innovation and intellectual property protection, and helps Chinese brands and products to go overseas and develop globally.
Helping high-quality go to sea
At present, cross-border e-commerce has become a new driving force for the growth of foreign trade and a "new force" in global trade.
According to the latest data from the General Administration of Customs, the mainland's cross-border e-commerce import and export in the first quarter of this year was 577.6 billion yuan, an increase of 9.6%. With the rapid growth of transaction scale, intellectual property disputes in the field of cross-border e-commerce are increasing, and intellectual property protection has become an important factor affecting the healthy and sustainable development of the cross-border e-commerce industry.
"Self-brand building has always been one of SHEIN's core strategies, and its independent brands have also won the recognition and love of consumers overseas. With its own brand as the core, SHEIN has established an intellectual property protection system integrating copyright, trademark, patent and trade secret, and in the process of coping with international competition, we have deeply realized the important role of intellectual property rights in brand and innovation protection. Sun Xun, senior vice president of SHEIN, said, "Combined with the development and experience of SHEIN's own brands, we have launched the 'Gravity • Innovation' IP empowerment plan, and SHEIN will work with Zhongce Intellectual Property Research Institute to carry out brand and intellectual property protection public welfare services for cross-border business groups in the form of education and training, practical tool research and development, one-to-one compliance and legal consultation, etc., to help more Chinese brands and merchants in the process of internationalization of intellectual property compliance, protection and innovative development." ”
According to reports, the plan is expected to comprehensively improve the level of intellectual property use, management and protection of the covered small and medium-sized businesses, so that they have the basic awareness of cross-border intellectual property protection and the ability to deal with typical intellectual property problems, help innovation and brand building, and empower more Chinese brands to go overseas and develop internationally.
SHEIN started as an independent clothing and fashion brand in 2012, and has now grown into a fashion and lifestyle online retailer driven by the dual mode of "private label + platform". Driven by the dual mode, SHEIN has always focused on the integrated empowerment of merchants, comprehensively improved the level and ability of merchants to deal with cross-border trade, and participated in global development with high quality.
Take advantage of dual-mode drives
Under the self-owned brand model, by giving full play to the advantages of the mainland garment manufacturing industry, SHEIN's own brand has carried out the digital transformation of the whole process and the whole chain, creating an industry-leading "small single quick reflex" model of flexible and on-demand clothing, so that the brand can supply in a timely manner according to the fashion needs of the market and consumers and greatly reduce inventory waste, so as to make the products more cost-effective. In this process, SHEIN continues to empower suppliers in all aspects of technological innovation, operation management, factory transformation support, and community public welfare services, so as to help traditional garment factories transform into modern and digitally managed enterprises.
To this end, SHEIN has also built a "Garment Manufacturing Innovation Research Center" of more than 60,000 square meters in Panyu, Guangzhou, to continue to research and explore lean and digital intelligence solutions and share R&D results with suppliers. By the end of 2023, SHEIN has helped more than 130 factories expand and renovate 430,000 square meters of factory buildings, benefiting 22,000 people, and held more than 600 supplier management trainings.
With its product and brand advantages, SHEIN's own brand has now grown into one of the world's four major fashion brands on a par with Uniqlo and ZARA, and has been selected as one of the top ten growth brands in the United States in 2023, along with global head brands such as CocaCola, and is the only Chinese brand selected and the only fashion brand selected worldwide.
In addition to building its own brand, SHEIN also pays attention to the development of external IP resources, and has successively cooperated with more than 220 famous IPs around the world such as Warner, and in 2023 alone, SHEIN has developed more than 10,000 co-branded IP products. Through the SHEIN X Designer Empowerment Program, it supports more than 4,600 independent designers and artists to build their own brands, from flexible on-demand production to sales and marketing.
At the same time, with the continuous expansion of the platform model, SHEIN uses its accumulated global extensive sales network, professional brand and marketing experience, and mature supply chain system to continue to drive more third-party brand sellers and industries to go overseas through the platform model. SHEIN has specially launched the "Hope Gravity" Million Seller Program and the National 500 Cities Industrial Belt Overseas Plan to help more Chinese manufacturing and Chinese brands go overseas with high quality, providing sellers with a series of growth empowerment including a full-process training system, operation and tool empowerment, one-stop fulfillment support, order and settlement support, low input costs, and comprehensive competitiveness improvement, and strengthening the support of "new excellent merchants". Since 2021, the SHEIN platform has covered sellers in more than 300 industrial belts across the country.
Sun Xun said that the IP empowerment of brand innovation and intellectual property protection launched for cross-border merchants aims to better help merchants participate in and adapt to cross-border trade, empower the growth of merchants throughout their life cycle, help more Chinese manufacturing and Chinese brands to build new quality productivity and brand power, and promote their high-quality overseas.
Zhang Chi, general manager of Zhongce, said that as an intellectual property think tank, Zhongce Research Institute pays great attention to the support and protection of intellectual property rights in industrial development, and the IP empowerment public welfare program in cooperation with SHEIN is a useful exploration to unite leading enterprises in the industry and chain owners to promote and disseminate intellectual property rights in a form that fits the characteristics of the industry. It is hoped that through the implementation of this project, it will provide strong support for the intellectual property protection and application practice of mainland merchants going overseas, and enhance their international competitiveness. At the same time, it is also hoped that through this public welfare plan, more enterprises and organizations will be stimulated to pay attention to intellectual property rights, form a good atmosphere for the whole society to respect and protect intellectual property rights, and promote the high-quality development of the industry.
Review: Xiong Yonghong
Editor: Zhang Diange Proofreader: Ya Wenhui Producer: Li Ruoyu Signed: Fei Yangsheng
