Shein: To love or not to love?
Opinion
Remember Shein?
Shein was one of the 59 Chinese applications banned in India in 2020 by the Ministry of IT under section 69A of the IT Act. This year it’s relaunching in the subcontinent through Amazon in July. Despite its massive success in India, concerns over the brand’s operations and transparency have raised many eyebrows.
Overview: Fastest growing E-commerce company
Shein is a 2008 founded Chinese fashion brand that clocks nearly $10 billion USD in revenues today and operates in 220 countries around the world. It adheres to the philosophy that “everyone can enjoy the beauty of fashion” and primarily focuses on women’s clothing, accessories, and shoes, while also stocking limited items from other categories. What’s the catch then?
Let’s understand fast fashion
Fast fashion is a design, manufacturing and marketing approach used to create high volumes of trendsetting garments, making it affordable for mass markets to adopt global fashion styles.
The fashion industry, however, is responsible for about 10% of global carbon emissions, and nearly 20% of wastewater - both alarming figures in the context of sustainability. Producers use low-quality materials and chemical constituents that seep into water bodies and sit in landfills for centuries together, posing a threat to the environment.
Red flags for Shein
Apart from the sustainability concerns, Shein has been at the centre of criticism otherwise as well! While it sells trending items at delightfully low prices and manageably fair or mediocre quality, there are worrisome aspects to it:
It leads to an overconsumption of clothing that doesn’t last and isn’t easily recyclable
It’s been in the midst of controversy for selling racially and religiously insensitive products
Shein has also been accused of unabashedly copying designs from original creators without giving due credit
It is also allegedly one of the many fast fashion brands that employs labourers from developing countries in legally non-compliant conditions.
Daily wage workers often work 7 days/week for nearly 12-14 hours in what are called “Sweatshops”
They operate in hazardous working conditions and are paid below minimum-living wages - ranging from INR 3K-6K a month
Workers are exposed to poor quality materials and chemicals, affecting health in the long run
Despite these concerns, people love Shein
In the pandemic-induced e-commerce engagement, Shein recently surpassed Zara, H&M and Forever 21 in fast fashion sales in the USA. When Shein announced its comeback to India, Instagram went crazy. Needless to say, we did too!
But why?
The retailer is a pioneer in building a real-time fashion model, basing it on intensive and data-driven algorithms that find global trends, and replicate them in as little as three days.
Its expertise in trend and demand prediction, adapting to regional tastes, quick turnaround time, and offering a huge variety of items makes it an easy-on-the-pocket brand for consumers who cannot afford high-priced yet sustainable fashion items. This also makes the buying experience simpler, reducing the decision-making time and effort.
Vertically integrated supply chain and affiliate programs
Their vertically integrated supply chain ensures they have control over a majority of the resources and can spend marketing dollars on affiliate programs - which reap high benefits when it comes to building customer loyalty and penetrating deeper into markets abroad. They’ve been successful in collaborating with several celebrities such as Katy Perry, Hailey Bieber and Yara Shahidi, thus expanding their market base and strengthening consumer trust.
Sustainability - A privilege
The reason for Shein’s shining success is a result of Influencers speaking to smaller audiences regarding affordable and reasonable fashion. We need to bear in mind that sustainable practices require time and capital - making the output accessible and affordable only for a niche market. To make environmentally friendly companies, products and services need to be scalable in a fast-moving market. The question then is, how and when will we get there?
The curious case of Kerala
Covid-19
Within 2 weeks, new cases in Kerala have increased by 15% with the state accounting for more than 30% of new cases across the country. With the second wave nearly dying down across the nation, Kerala is facing a struggle of its own. Is this the onset of the third wave, or is it a one-off case?
What’s the situation in the south?
Kerala currently has a 12% test positivity rate with the country’s average a little under 3%. While Kerala’s testing rate is also the highest in the country, one simply cannot ignore the high positivity rate too.
*as of July 12, 2021
Why is it suddenly so bad?
According to IMA Kerala, the state lockdown allowing only shops to open on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays led to the population gathering in higher numbers in congested places which abetted the spread of the virus.
While few businesses did follow the rules, many were forced to open the shops since the state government ‘failed’ to come to the aid of merchants and local shopkeepers.
“The behaviour of the virus in Kerala is turning out to be a nightmare for experts. Its progression rate is slow. We need an in-depth study, and we have to compare its case pattern with other states,” said public health expert Dr NM Arun.
The second wave across the nation didn’t hit Kerala as severely as it hit most of the other parts of the country which led to the government and the public often becoming casual with restrictions.
"Social distancing is not being maintained in public places. The only thing is that people are wearing masks. This is the view of public places in Kerala" - Kerala HC.
Author’s opinion
Even as a state lauded with greater control over the spread of the virus, Kerala seems pushed to the wall. The current variants and their dominance across the population is the salient feature of the latest cases across the state, which could further pan out across the country if we are not careful. With vaccination drives across the nation and our healthcare sector doing their best to prevent a third wave, one must exercise caution - wear masks, sanitize themselves and maintain social distance when in public.
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