In a short window of time, Shein has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. A household brand name with a constant overhaul of inventory, the company moves at breakneck speeds. Gent’s Post had the opportunity to sit down with Peter Pernot-Day, Shein’s Global Head of Strategy and Corporate Affairs, to talk about how they became the giant they are.
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The backstory
Shein was founded in 2008 by American-born Chris Xu in Nanjing China. The company, which is now headquartered in Singapore, has grown to become the largest global online-only retail store in 15 short years. The target audience of the brand is teens and young adults, and their audience absolutely loves them. Shein manages to make fast trending high-quality fashion within three days and sell it at a very accessible price for an audience who buys in volumes. They list anywhere between 500-2000 new items on their website daily. This feeds the ravenous appetite of their customers who have to stay fashion-forward for their off and online lives.
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In a demonstration of how they are outpacing their competition, Shein has seen 229 million app downloads. Their closest counterpart, legacy brand H&M, receives 124 million meanwhile Zara sits at 91 million. In 2021, Shein became the most downloaded shopping app on iOS and Android in America beating Amazon. With an impact like that, the question begs, how do they do it?
How they do it
The key component, according to Permot-Day, is the passion of the global teams that believe in what Shein is about. The ethos is based on the premise to make immediate fashion accessible. “Fashion is about self-expression and aesthetic communication. It is where the individual can express themself in their public space in a way that is dramatic and speaks about them”. Shein uses their platform to take the opposite approach of mainstream fashion avenues. Using agile production, they can produce a huge variety of clothing for a huge variety of tastes. Self-expression is thus actualized through their marriage of technology and production.
Sustainability
A global fashion brand producing the quantity of products Shein does daily raises questions around sustainability. Generally, companies like this see up to 30% go to waste but Permot-Day states the opposite is true for Shein. He notes the company produces 100 to 200 pockets of each design for their global markets. This means when it’s sold they only make more based on product demand in order to reduce waste. As for post-consumption, they have a few unique strategies to combat that. Deadstock rescue is one such program. It ensures fabrics and other material that aren’t used in the production gets picked up by a company and through a database shared with other manufacturers. Allowing products to be repurposed rather than going to garbage heaps or dumpsites.
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In addition, they also developed the Shein X concept. The program allows young designers to create using Shein’s well-oiled manufacturing, materials, marketing, and selling system. This also helps eliminates waste and promotes sustainability as the guesswork and overproduction through faulty prediction gets eliminated. Further, they have the Shein Exchange which is a network where customers get to sell their gently used Shein items to new customers again keeping waste to a minimum. These are just some of the concepts and processes being implemented and more being explored.
What’s next?
In January 2023, Permot-Day took over as Shein’s Global Head of Strategy and Corporate Affairs. Prior to that he had been with the company since 2021 in a different capacity. Under his leadership, he plans to continue to build upon the Shein ethos. “At the core, Shein was founded to make fashion accessible for everyone,” he notes.
Permot-Day believes they should follow what their customers want, rather than asking them to follow any specific designer. He believes that model will lead to continued success by being the platform where the client can find the product they express themselves organically with rather than dictating through some designer or tastemaker gatekeeper.
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All in all, no easy task at such a global scale, but one Permot-Day certainly relishes the opportunity to grow in.
