I haven’t met very many people in my life who haven’t purchased from SHEIN at some point in their lives, or at least spent hours on their website, browsing through the thousands of pieces they have for sale. They copy clothing ideas from the trendiest brands, and sell it much cheaper than the competition. What’s not to love about that scheme? Well, it is actually harmful to many groups of people, from the factory workers making the garments, to the businesses they’re stealing designs from.
Imagine yourself as a small business owner who tries to sell sustainable fashion that not only follows clothing trends, but also promotes a cleaner method of production in the fashion industry (since the fashion industry is the second biggest polluter in the world!). Now, imagine a large brand like SHEIN taking your designs, forcing their underpaid, underage, and malnourished factory workers to make that design, and sells those designs for under half the price of the original garment. How would you feel if your design was robbed from you without credit, and sold in a larger quantity, just because it’s cheaper and has a larger online fanbase?
SHEIN is known to hire factory workers that are minors, or extremely impoverished adults, and by doing so, they can pay those workers much less than an experienced and educated adult worker. SHEIN sn’t the only company who does this. Some of your favorite brands, such as H&M, Forever 21, and many more, get their clothing designs manufactured in Asian countries, such as China and Bangladesh. This is simply done because with cheaper labor comes cheaper prices for materials and garments as a whole. This makes the profit margin much higher for pretty much any brand of any scale. Because of this, the workers are not only young and living in poverty, but treated unfairly. Large factories take advantage of the impoverished, just so they can make a larger profit.
They also pay influencers to promote their products, and send them garments that are typically higher quality than the ones they’re selling to the average consumer. Pretty much every social media site is stuffed with influencers and smaller-scale celebrities promoting fast-fashion companies like SHEIN. You’ll be able to find thousands of YouTube videos and TikTok ads about “SHEIN Hauls,” but to your surprise, it’ll say “this is a paid advertisement,” “this is sponsored by SHEIN,” or “SHEIN sent me these items for free” at the very bottom of their video descriptions. Most of those videos are not authentic; they are being paid to say such positive things about the brand.
The list goes on and on for the scheme of SHEIN to be harmful for thousands of lives, especially for workers and clothing competitors; on the other hand, we can look at the harmful things they can do to their customers. Being a mostly-online company (with the exception of a few pop-up stores in major cities such as New York), the potential for worldwide customers is quite large. Every person I know has either heard of SHEIN, or has purchased from them at some point in their lives. With all of this traffic, you would think that their website is secure, but in reality, it’s just as much of a mess as their factories.
There have been numerous security breaches within the website, causing hundreds of thousands of email addresses, personal information, and credit card information to be leaked to hackers. I am a victim of those breaches, and my mother was a victim as well (she was buying me birthday presents!). My email address, as well as my personal information was leaked. Because of this, I get at least 20 scam emails a day, random pieces of scam mail in my physical mailbox, and other accounts hacked that were connected to my email, such as my PayPal account. My mothers credit card was hacked, which caused her to lose over $1,000 from her account. Luckily, she was able to dispute the charge, and got all of her money back.
SHEIN is also known to list offensive products on their site. Recently, SHEIN has been getting backlash for selling items such as Muslim prayer mats as rugs, shirts with weird and/or racist components, and most recently, a metal swatstika necklace selling for $2.50. SHEIN tried to defend the swastika necklace by saying it was meant to be a Buddhist swastika, not the one used in Nazi Germany. Either way, SHEIN still needs to realize their market is not just one group of people, and those who are not Buddhist will instantly assume the worst on that necklace.
They also try to make it sound like SHEIN, Romwe and Zaful are separate companies. Trust me, they’re all owned by the same company, and they all sell the same products. You may order from Romwe and get a SHEIN garment in your package. It happens quite often between the three stores, so purchasing from a different one other than SHEIN does not guarantee that you won’t get hacked. They’re all connected, and have the same practices.
I overall think that SHEIN should be a no-go for most consumers. Have I gotten a few great pieces from this site? Yes! But do I constantly have this pit of guilt every time I look through this website? Also yes. I’m not going to make someone feel bad for purchasing off of this site, considering that many brands participate in the same practices as SHEIN, but they are one of the many contributors to the fast-fashion issue. I completely understand those who buy from this website: they’re typically the fashion-forward individual who isn’t about to use their whole paychecks on looking cute. I’ve been in that situation before (plenty of times, really), and I still can be in that spot. Being a full-time college student with only a part-time job during breaks, I tend to fall into that SHEIN consumer category. I usually try to make an effort to avoid fast-fashion, and there are numerous ways to do it, such as thrifting and buying from sustainable fashion companies.
If you are looking to purchase from SHEIN, I have two pieces of advice. Please read the reviews on the garment before purchasing it. I’ve purchased items there without looking at reviews, and the piece comes inches shorter or narrower than what the sizing online mentioned. There are usually hundreds of reviews on most pieces, and some people give some valuable advice for the particular piece you’re looking at. You should also never forget the damaging things that they do to the environment, as well as innocent workers, small businesses, and consumers. Though we can’t solve this issue individually, we can start to educate the public on larger businesses practicing such poor business moves that cost thousands of workers to be in poor working, and living conditions.
