Shein was first started in October of 2008 but its fame skyrocketed when a massive internet trend called “Shein hauls” appeared on TikTok in June of 2021. A Shein haul is a video of a consumer reviewing, trying on, and evaluating clothes that they purchased from Shein. A single search on TikTok with #Shein had about 10.4 billion views and thousands of videos. I would scroll through my FYP on TikTok and would just only see Shein hauls.
This whole summer, the beach was covered in women and girls in Shein bathing suits. You would say to someone, “Cute bikini where did u get it?” And 8 out of 10 times the answer would be Shein. Shein widely expanded their consumerism culture which lead to the rise in other hauls such as Amazon and Zara.
When I first saw Shein and the prices I realized there must be a reason for the extremely low pricing, as no fashion brand can ethically be that cheap. Sure enough, there was.
So, what is Shein?
Shein is an international online fast-fashion company that markets to trendy young women with low budgets. They focus mostly on womenswear and sell everything from bikinis, home decor to Halloween costumes. The company is based out of China but ships to over 220 countries.
Shein has a net worth of about $15 billion has made an annual revenue of close to about 10 billion USD in 2020. Shein produces cheap trendy low-quality clothing that is not supposed to last long. The clothes are made with cheap synthetic fibers such as polyester and nylon. Although these clothes are cheap, and low quality they are made from materials that do not decay and therefore will typically spend more time in the landfill than they ever did in our closets. Shein’s clothing is so inexpensive that people do mass orders anywhere from $200-400 of like 20-30 items and will just throw out those that do not fit well.
What’s even worse is that according to Molly Miao, Chief Marketing Officer at Shein, the company drops anywhere between 700-1000 new styles daily. They drop hundreds of new styles every day to get buyers to purchase more frequently, furthering the consumerism culture.
In addition to low quality, Shein lacks transparency when it comes to the production and supply chain. Shein uses greenwashing, a technique in which companies pretend to be sustainable when they say that all clothing is made from sustainably sourced materials and ethically produced. In reality, Shein is secretive on information regarding factories and the ethics of the company. So, it makes you wonder if Shein truly was ethical and sustainable, wouldn’t they be spreading this information around?
Furthermore, Shein has had problems in the past as they have been insensitive to other cultures and have stolen designs from other smaller artists. Shein has been publicly criticized and denounced for selling Muslim prayer mats as a piece of home decor with the description as being Fringe Trim Greek Fret Carpet, and for selling a swastika necklace. Shein was boycotted for weeks and the posts about swastikas blew up in disgust, causing Shein to finally take them off the site.
Shein is terrible for the environment and is helping expand fast fashion when we should be ending it. When will consumers wake up and realize that Shein is doing much more harm than good?