Fashion Brief: Shein’s Growth is over
After exponential growth in sales in previous years, Shein’s sales have been falling since mid-2022. Six out of the past seven months they’ve seen a decline in sales. There’s no specified reason for the decline, but rather a multitude of them. One reason doesn’t have anything to do directly with Shein, and everything to do with the world economy: consumers are spending less on fashion, especially online as in-person shopping is now pretty much back to normal. During the Shein boom in 2020-2021, the consumers with the most discretionary income were lower to middle income shoppers--the exact target audience for the company. But now, that discretionary income is declining during the current economic climate, and the low prices of fast fashion aren’t low enough for a lot of people.
Also, during that boom, young consumers were consistently glued to their computer and phone screens. A lot of these young people were using their free time to aimlessly browse the store. Since the world has opened again, young consumers aren’t scrolling through stores out of boredom nearly as much anymore. Additionally, there’s the sustainability aspect, or lack thereof. The majority of Shein’s consumers are becoming more and more eco-conscious and those consumers are starting to become more and more aware of where they put their dollar. Grouped with this, is the death of the infamous Shein Haul. The trend is dying as more and more people are being criticized for participating due to the well-known unsustainable reputation of the brand. From 2020-2023, 70% of the conversations online regarding Shein were negative due to their business practices. Since so much negativity surrounds the company and only seems to get worse and worse, the young consumer base also fears backlash from their peers, and thus, have also stopped buying their product.
Shein’s trying to fight back and come back on top. Despite their decline, they continue to build and open manufacturing houses in the US and Europe to get products to consumers faster. To try to get back in consumers' good graces, they’ve launched an incubator program for young, emerging designers. They’ve come out with several sustainability initiatives to try to better their image, but none really do much. Shein’s not completely disappearing anytime soon. In fact, it’s expected to remain a top competitor within the industry. But they are on the decline--the biggest decline they’ve seen in the years of their global popularity.
At first glance this article title made one question come to mind: is Shein a fad? I first heard about Shein back in 2015, but it really became a huge thing within the past few years. Evident in the past few months, the company’s been rapidly on the decline. So, I would wonder if Shein’s relevance to the consumer had come and gone quickly enough to be a fad. Unfortunately, they haven’t “gone” yet. They’re still here and not going anywhere. Ironically their target consumers are the young people becoming more eco-conscious and yet that is the same group of people consuming the bulk of their product. The decline has begun because the negative impact on the environment is becoming more and more criticized. I don’t think young people are buying less from Shein purely because they know it’s the right thing to do. I think young people are buying less from Shein because they don’t want to receive the incredible backlash from their peers. It’s a real thing that whenever someone asks, “where’s that from?” about someone else's clothes, the wearer tends to want to avoid mention of Shein. It’s not good for your image anymore because of the horrible things coming out about it, and that’s what I think is truly responsible for, what I hope is, the beginning of the end for the fast-fashion giant.
