I was excited to use my brand-new air fryer until I plugged it in, switched it on — and the whole house went dark.
The mains had tripped. I switched off all my other kitchen appliances, reset the fuse and tried again. The same thing happened.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. The air fryer had cost only £36 from Shein, the Chinese fast-fashion juggernaut which exploded on to the shopping scene in the early days of the pandemic, and is now valued at a staggering $60 billion.
Shein (pronounced She-In, short for its original name of SheInside) has become synonymous with ultra-cheap — and ultra-fast — fashion, selling dresses for as little as £3, and it has become a staple brand for the young.
Earlier this year, a study found that more than 25 per cent of Gen Z consumers in the U.S. and UK had used the Shein app over the previous month.
The company is the world’s most-Googled clothing brand, the largest fast-fashion retailer by sales in the US and one of the most popular shopping apps in the world.
The Chinese fast-fashion juggernaut, which exploded on to the shopping scene in the early days of the pandemic, is now valued at a staggering $60 billion
Shein is now on manoeuvres, planning to expand its empire beyond fashion and accessories into sectors such as home, beauty and toys. Its quest is to overtake Amazon and embed itself further into the British market.
This month, it was reported the company is looking for a site of 300,000 sq ft to 400,000 sq ft in the Midlands for its first ever UK warehouse.
And all this is going on as Shein is deep in negotiations about a blockbuster £50 billion listing on the London Stock Exchange. But these plans appeared to suffer a setback yesterday with the shocking admission from Shein that its suppliers had employed child labour in 2023.
So what is the truth about Shein, which stoutly defends its business practices and denies the allegations. How come its products are so cheap? Are they worth it even at their rock-bottom prices?
To find out, I braved the Shein website to hunt for bargains.
The experience was the digital equivalent of walking through a hectic bazaar. With bright banners, non-stop pop-ups offering discounts, ‘countdown deals’ and seemingly endless pages of products, browsing Shein was an assault on the senses.
Are the products worth it even at their rock-bottom prices? To find out, writer Clara Gaspar braved the website to hunt for bargains
Many pictures advertising the brand’s clothing are clearly created by AI or poorly Photoshopped, while customer reviews on products are mixed.
Glowing praise sits beside warnings about poor stitching, odd fits and colours that don’t match the pictures — suggesting the use of ‘bots’ to write fake reviews.
Eventually I selected my items, a mixture of clothing, accessories and homeware goods that came in at just over £100 for 14 products — among them a pair of trainers for £14.66, a jewellery box for £2.40, a £1.45 copy of a £4,500 Van Cleef ‘clover bracelet’, a concealer kit from Shein’s own SheGlam make-up range for £6.17, a pair of sunglasses for £1.92, a set of 6 pairs of earrings for £1.93 and a pair of black heels for just £7.97.
Every item was less than half the price of its Amazon equivalent.
I was told to wait between six and eight business days for my wares to arrive. Just two days later, however, the first parcel was delivered. It contained the air fryer — and a gym top.
Receiving the rest of the order wasn’t so straightforward. I received three bizarre and poorly worded emails from Shein a few days later. It seemed as if the message had been translated from another language.
‘Dear customer, It is a pity that your order delivery has attempted failure. The main reason is due to insufficient address/phone number/no one at home when delivery . . . If you do not sign for a receipt soon, the package may be returned to the sender. We are always at your service if you need any help.’
A pity indeed! I had provided the correct address and phone number and ordered the parcel to be delivered to a building with a 24/7 concierge service.
But I waited patiently after reading posts on chat forums from people who had received the same message then subsequently received their parcels.
Lo and behold, on the eighth day, a large box arrived containing the rest of the items.
My haul was a mixed bag. While the black heels and gym gear were surprisingly good quality for the price, the ice tray leaked — rendering it useless, the concealers felt like oily face paint and the trainers were not the size I had ordered.
When taking delivery of goods from Shein, which counts fashion label Missguided among its stable, it is common for them to arrive in multiple parcels.
Given that the company does not yet own or operate any warehouses in Britain, orders are usually sent direct from outlets the company owns in China. Which means Shein can legally avoid paying UK import duties applied to all packages from overseas worth more than £135.
This is because the vast majority of orders placed with Shein are below this threshold, and any that exceed it are broken into smaller orders to avoid paying the tax. The Tax Policy Associates (TPA) think tank calculates the company avoided paying £150 million in import duties last year.
Shein sends its parcels via air cargo. Indeed, earlier this year it was reported that Shein and its rival e-commerce site Temu are sending so many parcels by air — the equivalent of 88 Boeing 777 freighters full every day — that they have upended the global air cargo industry, pushing up prices and causing capacity shortages.
Every item Clara purchased was less than half the price of its Amazon equivalent
Of course, there’s an environmental price to pay — the company leaves about 6.3 million tons of carbon dioxide a year in its trail, the same as a small nation.
Shein’s story begins in 2008 when entrepreneur Chris Xu, the whizkid son of two poor factory workers, who’s been called ‘the world’s most anonymous CEO’, founded a small online business in Nanjing, China.
The company initially focused on selling wedding dresses to Western consumers at shockingly low prices. The name was shortened from ‘SheInside’ to ‘Shein’ as the brand’s reach expanded to other fashion items.
What set it apart from its competitors was its ability to turn fashion trends into clothing at breakneck speed. Fast fashion, but faster than ever before.
Shein’s secret was an elaborate supply chain that allowed the company to design, manufacture, and ship products in just three days. While traditional fashion retailers take weeks, if not months, to get the latest trends into stores, you could order them on Shein almost instantly.
As well as tracking general fashion trends, Shein is also following its users’ buying habits constantly. By downloading its app, you’re opening up your phone to be constantly surveilled by Shein office workers in China.
As for the CEO Xu, he is still so little-known that many Shein workers don’t know what he looks like and reports about his character are hard to come by.
In a bid to expand into the West, Xu pursued a marketing strategy based on the relentless and aggressive use of social media. The tag #Sheinhaul — referring to splurges on vast amounts of cheap clobber — has been viewed a collective 14.2billion times on TikTok. But the glossy outfits on Instagram and TikTok come at a cost.
A series of exposes has painted a picture of grim working conditions in the factories that produce Shein’s vast array of products.
Among the items she purchased was a set of 6 pairs of earrings – for just £1.93
For a 2022 Channel 4 documentary, an undercover reporter filmed factory workers. They were reportedly working 17-hour shifts in cramped, poorly ventilated spaces. In one factory, the workers were paid a base salary of $20 per day, docked by a ruinous $14 if any garments were incorrectly made. In another sinister revelation, workers reported an increase in surveillance cameras within the factories. Another investigation by the human-rights group Public Eye reported ‘toddlers and young people in the workshops’ and young teenagers packaging items. For its part, Shein stresses its ‘strict zero tolerance’ for the use of child labour or forced labour, and denies it has any access to the surveillance footage of its suppliers.
But the bad news just keeps coming for the company. Last week, an investigation by South Korean authorities revealed that Shein clothing contained toxic substances sometimes hundreds of times above acceptable levels. Shoes from Shein were found to contain significantly high levels of phthalates − chemicals used to make plastics more flexible − with one pair 229 times above the legal limit.
Meanwhile, among the interviewees in that Channel 4 documentary about the brand was Fern Davey, an underwear designer from Bournemouth.
In 2020, Shein started selling a lingerie set that looked identical to one of Davey’s designs. But instead of costing £65, the imitation was just £4. It was removed from sale when Davey drew attention to the similarity.
Earlier this year, Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo sued Shein over claims that the Chinese fast fashion giant is selling copycats of its viral banana-shaped shoulder bag. Shein has also been sued by major brands including Dr. Martens, Ralph Lauren, Levi Strauss, Puma and Adidas.
Whatever the truth about all these claims, the string of controversies associated with Shein is hampering its mission to take over the American market. Its original plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange have been stalled by heightening tensions between Beijing and Washington.
Which explains why the company is seeking a listing in London. Labour Party MPs met with the retailer ahead of the General Election. Will Labour, the party which led its manifesto with a promise to ‘make work pay’, overlook the ethical storm and welcome in Shein? Only time will tell.