Shein was founded in Nanjing in 2008 by Chris Xu and is known to be an online apparel company that sells items at a low value. Instead of using high-quality cloth or charging a price where operations can continue; Shein decided to pursue the path where they make only a small sum on every sale, but since it is so cheap, more people are inclined to buy. So instead of making a livable wage per sale, they will only make $1-2 per sale, yet due to its cheap nature, one item will be sold over 100,000 times - making them $100,000 per item. By 2022, the sales reached $100 billion. Every day, Shein can add 2,000-10,000 new items which incline more people to buy as there are more items available.
Shein gets their sales mostly through their extensive media campaigns. Shein hires thousands of influencers to post on social media in order to show off the clothing, thus boosting sales. Even ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ showed Shein during one episode. Due to Shein blowing up, they went from making 50-100 pieces a day to mass producing. However, the environmental impact is clearly visible - Shein creates about 6.3 million tons of carbon dioxide per year - harming its local environment.
How Shein is trying to deal with its Co2 problem
Shein announced in October they are partnering with a non-profit that would help implement energy-effective programs. Thus, Shein would spend $7.6 million to pursue this partnership in hopes of saving some of their reputations.
Worker’s Rights
A documentary by the UK Channel found that the workers work 75 hours per week with little rest. The Swiss Watchdog Public Eye then accused Shein of violating Chinese labor law. In hopes of proving this, they hired Chinese researchers to track Shein’s manufacturing. They were able to set up hidden cameras to gain insight into the working conditions. The workers are forced to work 17 long-hour shifts to make hundreds of garments. In one of the factories, their base pay is only $20, and they deduct $14 if any of the garments have any mistakes on them. Shein came out and stated they would have an investigation to investigate this issue. Now, Shein is thinking of moving in a direction where the supplier can directly talk to clients and order items that way, thus limiting the mistreatment in such a vastly abusive industry.
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