Shein holds largest U.S. fast fashion market share - Bloomberg Second Measure (2024)
Chinese ecommerce giant Shein has experienced a meteoric rise in the U.S. fast fashion market, with its sales and market share overtaking competitors such as H&M, Fashion Nova, Forever 21, ASOS, and Zara during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using U.S. consumer spending data, we analyzed how Shein’s U.S. sales have boomed over the past few years, as well as how other fast fashion companies have fared.
Shein has accounted for a growing percentage of fast fashion market share in the U.S.
Shein’s growth skyrocketed in early 2020, with the company’s U.S. sales roughly doubling between March and April of that year. ASOS and Fashion Nova—both digitally native fast fashion companies—also experienced some sales growth during this time, with respective increases of 13 percent and 7 percent. By contrast, sales at the omnichannel merchants—H&M, Zara, and Forever 21—declined as shelter-in-place orders went into effect. It is worth noting that Bloomberg Second Measure’s U.S. consumer spending data only observes sales through each company’s own website or stores. International spending, as well as purchases through gift cards, financing, or third-party retailers (such as Forever 21 sales made through J.C. Penney) are excluded from our data.
On a year-over-year basis, Shein was the only fast fashion company in our analysis that experienced U.S. sales growth in November 2022, with an increase of 9 percent. Sales at ASOS declined 2 percent year-over-year, while both H&M and Zara declined 10 percent. Fashion Nova and Forever 21 also experienced negative U.S. sales growth year-over-year, with respective decreases of 25 percent and 26 percent. Notably, these companies all held sales in late November around Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
In addition, Shein has captured an increasing percentage of U.S. fast fashion market share over the past three years. In January 2020, shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shein earned 12 percent of U.S. fast fashion sales. In November 2022, Shein accounted for 50 percent of sales among these fast fashion competitors. That same month, the U.S. share of sales was 16 percent for H&M, 13 percent for Zara, 11 percent for Fashion Nova, and 6 percent for Forever 21. ASOS had the lowest share of U.S. fast fashion sales, with 4 percent.
Most sales at H&M, Zara, and Forever 21 still come from the retail channel
While Shein and ASOS operate entirely online and Fashion Nova has a very limited retail presence, the other fast fashion competitors in our analysis see a mix of online and retail sales. For H&M, Zara, and Forever 21, most sales took place online at the height of pandemic lockdowns, but then returned to retail by that summer.
For the first 11 months of 2022, the average monthly percentage of online sales was 26 percent at Zara, 25 percent at H&M, and 21 percent at Forever 21. The fast fashion companies also saw an uptick in their share of online sales each November, likely in part because of Cyber Monday. In November 2022, 34 percent of sales at each of these companies took place online. Forever 21, which filed for bankruptcy in late 2019 and shuttered nearly 200 underperforming stores, has also reportedly started relaunching new, smaller stores with more curated merchandise to reflect local shoppers’ demand.
Bloomberg Second Measurelaunched a new and exclusive transaction datasetin July 2022. Our data continues to be broadly representative of U.S. consumers. As a result of this panel change, however, we recommend using only the latest post in assessing metrics, anddo notsupport referring to historical blog posts to infer period-over-period comparisons.
According to market researcher Bloomberg Second Measure, Shein accounted for 50 per cent of all fast fashion sales in the US as of November 2022, ahead of established brands like H&M at 16 per cent and Zara with 13 per cent.
Market share of the leading fast fashion companies U.S. 2020-2022. Shein's market share in the United States more than doubled between March 2020 and March 2022, going from approximately 18 to 40 percent.
Major players in the fast-fashion market include Zara, H&M Group, UNIQLO, GAP, Forever 21, Topshop, Esprit, Primark, Fashion Nova, and New Look. Many companies are both retailers and manufacturers, though they often outsource the actual production of clothing.
Shein presents an option that's cheaper and more convenient than traditional fast fashion retailers, which adds to its attractiveness. They also produce even faster, meaning there's always an incentive to revisit the site week after week to check on new arrivals.
“They're cheaper than most secondhand clothing and of such low quality that it's unlikely they'll survive multiple owners. The fact that Shein is using data from secondhand sales to inform what to reproduce shows a complete lack of willingness to slow production.
But rather than ordering thousands of each item, Shein produces lines in very small quantities with fewer than 100 items ordered. It then uses real-time information to see how well each item performs, and rapidly orders more if a SKU proves popular, while discontinuing items that are not selling.
In the U.S., Shein is the biggest fast fashion retailer and the second-biggest online apparel retailer, only trailing behind Macy's in e-commerce net sales.
Shein (/ˈʃiːɪn/ SHEE-in; styled as SHEIN; Chinese: 希音; pinyin: Xīyīn) is a Chinese online fast fashion retailer headquartered in Singapore. Founded in Nanjing in October 2008 as ZZKKO by entrepreneur Chris Xu, Shein grew to become the world's largest fashion retailer as of 2022.
The environmental impact of SHEIN is one of the primary issues. SHEIN manufactures a tonne of apparel as a fast-fashion company, much of it is produced from synthetic materials that do not biodegrade. Also, the business's manufacturing and shipping methods could pollute the air and water.
Shein is a technology-driven fast-fashion retail company. Part of its success comes from its strategy that centers on a fast-fashion or on-demand manufacturing model that connects suppliers to its agile supply chain.
Fast-fashion giant Shein's throne challenged by rival with one of hottest US apps. BEIJING – It took Shein a decade to catch up with Inditex's Zara as the world's top fast-fashion retailer. Now, a new online upstart wants to topple Shein, at least on one measure, within a year.
SHEIN is an international B2C fast fashion eCommerce platform founded in 2008 by Chris Xu. The company improved on the ultra-fast fashion model by leveraging real-time retail, which quickly turned fashion trends in clothes' collections through its strong digital presence and successful branding campaigns.
In India alone, Shein was collaborating with around 2,000 influencers in 2018, its first year in the market, according to an interview with Shein India General Manager Malcolm Yam, who also noted that the company was reaching out to potential collaboration partners nearly every day.
According to Shein's 2021 Sustainability and Social Impact Report, 66% of Shein's supplier factories and warehouses have a “mediocre” performance—meaning there are 1-3 majors risks in the workplace, and “corrective action is required.” And 12% fall under the ZTV category, meaning there are major violations that require ...
Sales of selected fashion manufacturers/retailers worldwide in 2021. Inditex had the highest sales among the selected major apparel retailers and manufacturers, with revenues of approximately 31 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. Hennes and Mauritz (H&M), and Fast Retailing were ranked second and third, respectively.
Shein products aren't made in a couple of large factories, but instead, the brand relies on thousands of smaller suppliers that create small batches of clothes.
However, Shein is not without its weaknesses. The company has faced criticism for its fast-fashion business model, which prioritizes quick production and low prices over sustainability and ethical production practices. This factor may be detrimental as consumers become more environmentally and socially conscious.
By outsourcing labor, clothing retailers can cut costs and boost profits by paying workers less. And, when labor costs are cut, product costs can be cut, too, leading to super affordable clothing. In short, Shein produces its clothes in generic wholesale factories to keep its costs at a minimum.
Shien's issues are certainly not unique to the brand, but Shein's unsustainable practices of overproduction are exceptionally bad. Wired found that, in 2021, Zara and H&M, the two largest fast fashion companies besides Shein, listed 35,000 and 25,000 different items, respectively. Shein listed 1.3 million.
Earlier this week, the fashion e-commerce site said it had committed $15 million to improve the standards of 300 of its partnered factories over the next four years. The fund will focus on making physical enhancements to its suppliers' factories. That amounts to $50,000 per factory, which doesn't seem like a lot.
In the Fashion market in the United States, shein.com is ranked #1 with > US$5,000m in 2022. Therefore, shein.com accounts for 0.0% - 5.0% of eCommerce net sales in this category. The top stores are shein.com, macys.com and walmart.com.
Fast fashion is notorious for using sweatshops—which subject workers to horrible conditions and long hours for meager pay—as well as child labor. In June 2022, videos went viral on social media claiming that Shein employees were hiding messages in the clothes they produced.
He started out by selling wedding dresses online. In 2012, he diversified into womenswear and later changed the brand name to Shein. Today, Shein also offers kid's and men's clothing and ships to 220 countries around the world.
If you are from the US and ordering through the app, Shein will automatically get your orders from their warehouse in the US. It is located in Los Angeles. The clothes from their warehouse in Foshan are shipped to their LA warehouse.
Fast fashion is 'fast' in a number of senses: the changes in fashion are fast, the rate of production is fast; the customer's decision to purchase is fast; delivery is fast; and garments are worn fast – usually only a few times before being discarded.
Goalder works to negate the issues of fast fashion by investing time into a budding movement referred to as slow fashion — the antithesis of fast fashion — which aims to combat the issues of overconsumption and overproduction within the fashion industry.
Fast fashion was pioneered by reclusive entrepreneur Amancio Ortega Gaona and his companies Zara and Inditex (Industria de Diseno Textil) in Galicia, Spain.
SHEIN itself has faced lawsuits alleging copyright infringement. Under the name Zoetop Business, it was sued by dozens of independent artists and retailers including Nike (NKE.
Despite gargantuan profits, SHEIN HAS been accused of stealing designs from small independent labels, selling offensive items including Islamic prayer rugs as decorative mats and swastika necklaces, selling items containing unsafe amounts of lead, and forcing garment workers to work in extremely unethical conditions.
The news comes as Shein goes head-to-head with a surging new threat. A lawsuit it filed in December in the U.S. District Court of Illinois pits the company against Temu, the Chinese fast-fashion rival whose Super Bowl coming out party catapulted its ultra-cheap clothing into the U.S. consumer consciousness.
The target audience for fast fashion is consumers aged between 18 and 24, while women and young girls consume fast fashion more than any other demographic group.
It is perhaps no surprise that the same two countries play a significant role in international trade. In 2021, China led the rankings for the highest value of apparel exports.
Shein products aren't made in a couple of large factories, but instead, the brand relies on thousands of smaller suppliers that create small batches of clothes.
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Despite gargantuan profits, SHEIN HAS been accused of stealing designs from small independent labels, selling offensive items including Islamic prayer rugs as decorative mats and swastika necklaces, selling items containing unsafe amounts of lead, and forcing garment workers to work in extremely unethical conditions.
From poor working conditions, high levels of toxic chemicals in clothing, and copying items from independent designers to mishandling customer data, there is now an overall worldwide push to boycott this company.
By outsourcing labor, clothing retailers can cut costs and boost profits by paying workers less. And, when labor costs are cut, product costs can be cut, too, leading to super affordable clothing. In short, Shein produces its clothes in generic wholesale factories to keep its costs at a minimum.
It's much cheaper to manufacture clothes in China than it is in the U.S. This is why SheIn can afford to set lower price points than other clothing brands can. At SheIn, you get what you pay for. SheIn uses lower-quality materials to make their clothing, which keeps costs down and prices low.
An affiliate is someone who can earn a commission if their customer referrals make a purchase. Here are simple steps to follow so you can become one. Your customer is directed to the Shein website, where they can place their order. You then get a 10-20% commission from each sale.
About Us. SHEIN's mission is to serve as a leader in the industry and bring fashion into the modern era. We are a global fashion and lifestyle e-retailer committed to making the beauty of fashion accessible to all.
Hobby: Shopping, Table tennis, Snowboarding, Rafting, Motor sports, Homebrewing, Taxidermy
Introduction: My name is Duncan Muller, I am a enchanting, good, gentle, modern, tasty, nice, elegant person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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