Wild Card Paper

Shein 

    Throughout the semester as we have been talking about the wild card paper I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a good topic to write about and every time this company would come to my head. Shein is a clothing company that started in 2008 in Nanjing, China. 

    Shein is known for its incredibly low prices on all of their items. It started off as just a clothing company but has expanded to makeup, home decor, jewelry, handbags, and more. Shein offers their products to all of Europe, America, Australia, and the Middle East. Although the company started in Nanjing, China, the warehouse for Shein is located in Foshan, Guangdong. 

    When it comes to buying clothes and products from Shein, you definitely have to be cautious. Reading the reviews under products is very important. The review section is where you will find out whether the item fits true to size and if the quality is good or not. Because the items are such a good price, the quality isn't always top notch but the reviews help a lot. 

    According to Forbes, Shein started off as a brand called Sheinside.com. The owner Chris Xu started this company after she gave up his wedding dress company to start this selling womens clothes online. In 2015 he changed the name from Sheinside to just Shein. Shein started off just shipping to overseas markets but now ships to approximately 220 countries. 

    Although Shein is all online for the most part, they have expanded to doing pop-up stores around the world. In the United States they have had pop-up locations in San Diego, Austin, San Jose, Chicago, SF, Miami, New York, Dallas, and LA. The pop-up locations are a great idea if you ask me. There for a while not many people knew what Shein was and were a little skeptical about ordering from the website. During the Panedmic is when Shein started to get a good amount of business. Everyone was sitting at home bored and online shopped to pass the time. 

    There have been arguments, posts, and concerns about how Shein is unsustainable and bad for the environment. Concerns have also been rising about child labor throughout this company. It is hard for some people to see how a fast fashion company like this would provide a good working environment for the employees. It is very common for companies like Shein to use sweat shops in order to get their products to the customers in timely manner. Sweat shops usually lead to horrible working conditions, bad pay, and child labor. Even though these concerns about the company have come to the surface, nothing has really been confirmed and no one really knows how the employees are paid or treated. Concerns also rise about the amount of plastic that this company releases into our environment. With every item that is ordered, it comes in a zip-up plastic bag a long with the shipping package. Not to mention people order up to twenty items at a time because of the reasonable prices so you can only imagine how many plastic is being sent to our landfills. 

    It seems like every where we look these days, everything has some type of coordination with Tik Tok. If I remember correctly, the first time I had ever heard about Shein was from Tik Tok video of a girl who was showing off around twenty bathing suits that she had just purchased for the summer. As summer is upon us again, more and more of these #sheinhauls. It is crazy the amount of clothes people will buy at once from this company but do I blame them? Heck no! You can get five shirts for the price of one. That's a steal if you ask me. 

@daelynsummerrt My face is still swollen from getting my wisdom teeth out so please ignore🙃 BUT SHEIN HAUL!!! #shein #haul #clothes #cute #excited ♬ original sound - daelynsummerrt

    Shein does really well at finding popular celebrities to be influencers for them. These influencers model clothing, have their own clothing line through the company, and promote the company here and there. Over the years, Addison Rae who is Tik Tok influencer has had a clothing line through Shein. Addison also wore a Shein dress to the Met Gala in 2021. Madison Prewett, was on the Bachelor and also had a clothing line with Shein and also modeled the clothes for them. Hailey Bieber is also a big name for Shein being Justin Biebers wife, she also has played a big part in the clothing styles that have come through Shein. Katy Perry has never modeled for Shein but she has been a big supporter along with having her own part in the clothing. Lil Nas X, Rita Ora, and Yara Shahida are some other big names that have supported Shein over the years. 

Addison Rae at the Met gala wearing a dress from Shein. 

 

Maddison Prewett modeling clothes from her Shein clothing line.

Hailey Bieber showing off her outfit from Shein on her Instagram story.

    There is no doubt that Shein is one of the most popular retail clothing stores right now. You would be surprised at the quality of their clothing when you see the prices. Shein does a great job of marketing their brand through ads and the influencers that they choose to represent their brand. Overall Shein is a very well represented brand and is very successful.