Chinese Fast Fashion May Be in the Line of Fire in a Second Trump Term

The $12.99 premium T-shirt was made of richer material, a firm cotton, though it didn’t fit quite right. The return address, on the bag in which the order had come, was in California. During a cool week in February, just after the Lunar New Year, I asked a colleague to visit the district of Panyu in Guangzhou, where Shein has operations. Shein had declined my request to speak with suppliers, so my colleague had come to see their working conditions firsthand.

• However, strategies working to its advantage comes with its own deficiencies surrounding worker rights, overproduction and a lack of sustainability commitments.
• A lengthy investigation by Wired first chronicled how both laborers and consumers suffered from the production of its clothes, while a documentary by the U.K.’s Channel 4 found that Shein employees were working 75-hour shifts with very little time off.
• Miriam Diamond, environmental chemist and University of Toronto professor, pointed out to CBC that this contamination is not only unsafe for shoppers but also for the individuals actually producing these items.
• But several reports over the last year reveal the company’s shocking track record of human rights violations and an environmentally-unsustainable model—leaving many to wonder how its popularity continues to soar among consumers.
• David Jacks, an economics professor from Singapore’s Yale-NUS College, told BI that it’s “hard to think of any scenario” where the fast-fashion industry “completely escapes revived US protectionism.”

Initiatives like Shein X have been launched in an effort to support up-and-coming designers

Michaela tentatively welcomes the idea of the fast fashion giant making Britain its financial home. It also uses “gamification” strategies to boost customer engagement on its shopping app which is used by millions of people worldwide. But she feels most fashion brands face similar criticism and that “not everyone can afford high-end clothing”.

But the ethical issues began to concern her and now she won’t shop there at all, opting instead for second-hand sites Vinted and Depop. It has also launched a resale platform for shoppers in the US and France to boost its green credentials, while it says producing clothes in smaller batches means very little material goes to waste. Last year, a group of US lawmakers also called for Shein to be investigated over claims that Uyghur forced labour in China is used to make some of the clothes it sells. The Chinese-founded firm – which also sells a huge range of beauty and home products – doubled its profits to more than $2bn (£1.6bn) last year, making more than the Swedish fashion group H&M and the UK’s Primark and Next. After posting glowing reviews of their trips, the influencers faced a lot of backlash for ignoring mounting allegations of questionable labor ethics and concerns about Shein’s role in climate pollution.

Despite the bad press, UBS analysts suggest that Shein could continue to take major market share from US apparel companies. In a June report, they attributed much of the company’s success to its marketing prowess. Shein’s loyal customers are not only driven by its low prices, but by a strong community bolstered by in-person events. Such videos are widely shared on social media and illustrate how many items you can buy for $100, for example.

Shein’s US base is in Los Angeles; the company also recently opened an Indianapolis-area distribution center and an office near Washington, DC. Its growing US presence comes at a time when Shein is already attracting the attention of regulators. In January, Congress introduced the Import Security and Fairness Act, which, if signed into law, would eliminate the tax exemption for packages from China worth less than $800. It would also require Customs and Border Protection to collect more information on those kinds of shipments. Earl Blumenauer, the Oregon finmax review congressman who introduced the bill, told me that Shein is an especially large beneficiary of the tax exemption and expressed concerns about the business as a whole.

Now the company has filed confidentially to go public, the Wall Street Journal reported. Earlier this month, insiders told Bloomberg that Shein is eyeing a $90 billion valuation. Founded in Nanjing, China, in October 2008 as ZZKKO by entrepreneur Chris Xu, Shein grew to become the world’s largest fashion retailer as of 2022. The company is planning to go public in the UK, eyeing a $65 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported in October. If Trump review laughing at wall street imposes a 10% universal tariff on all imports and an additional 60% to 100% tariff on goods from China, apparel prices would increase between 12.5% and 20.6%, the NRF wrote in the report.

Reuters found that, in the past, Shein falsely claimed that the conditions in their factories were certified by international labor standards. As of this writing, the fashion brand’s website simply states that it “supports the ten principles of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals focused on human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.” There’s a running, unproven accusation on TikTok that Shein depends on child labor. These comments usually appear on videos of Shein hauls or styling videos, in which users try to shame well-off creators for buying from a purportedly unethical company. To be clear, there is no evidence that Shein employs children or produces an unsafe labor environment, but the company has not publicly disclosed workers’ wages or hours.

Since then, the program has worked with around 1,500 designers and artists from all across the world, according to PR Newswire. Specifically, Shein helps its Shein X designers with manufacturing, marketing, and sales while allowing them ownership over their designs and a piece of their line’s profit. Social media users, various media outlets, and even the Mexican government have criticized some of the products that Shein has carried on its website due to cultural appropriation and cultural insensitivity.

It also partners with celebrities and well-known influencers to promote the brand on social media.

As Vauhini Vara wrote in Wired, “This damage isn’t unique to Shein, but Shein’s success makes it especially notable.” Fast fashion, which refers to inexpensive and trendy clothes being produced at an inhumane speed to meet public demand, especially damages the environment due to the mind-blowing abundance of clothing being produced in such a short time period. A McKinsey Sustainability article found that clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014, and people now keep their clothes for only half as long as they did back in 2000.

The company’s IPO plans could be delayed

“THIS IS BIG,” read a banner across the screen advertising a Black Friday sale, the words flashing for emphasis. I tapped on an icon of a dress, sorted all the listings by price, and, curious about the quality, selected the cheapest python math libraries item. In the sweatshirt section, I added a cute color-block pullover ($4.50) to my cart. Last fall, in the stagnation of pandemic life, I became fascinated with videos of influencers standing in their bedrooms and trying on clothes from a company called Shein. It’s an engine of efficiency, a marvel of modern technology, an innovation that catapults fashion forward while taking great care of our planet and respect for our customer’s time.

Which of China’s consumer segments is…

With its headquarters now based in Singapore, Shein also began manufacturing in Turkey and is leasing and operating warehouses in Poland to ship to customers in Europe. Advocacy groups and journalists also uncovered evidence that Shein’s $11 bikinis and $7 crop tops were being made by people working in unsafe workshops, lacking safety protocols like windows and emergency exits. Many also worked without contracts or minimum wage requirements, thereby allowing the company to reportedly fail to pay its employees properly. Channel4’s documentary, Inside The Shein Machine, sent undercover cameras to film factory workers who were forced to pull 17-hour shifts to make hundreds of garments a day. In one factory, they made a daily base salary of $20, which would then be docked by $14 if any garments had mistakes.

Lawsuits with Temu

Jeffrey Towson, the founder of US and China-based retail consultancy TechMoat Consulting, said that Shein and Temu are popular in the US precisely because of their cheap products. David Jacks, an economics professor from Singapore’s Yale-NUS College, told BI that it’s “hard to think of any scenario” where the fast-fashion industry “completely escapes revived US protectionism.” Customers can typically buy Shein items in mass hauls for under $100, which has become a Gen-Z trend on TikTok. However, strategies working to its advantage comes with its own deficiencies surrounding worker rights, overproduction and a lack of sustainability commitments. It was also called out for listing Muslim prayer mats on its site, which were advertised as “decorative rugs.” Shein apologised via a statement posted on Instagram.