And then suddenly from the Shein silence, the non-communication with government committees, potential shareholders and the general public, we have Peter Pernot-Day, Shein’s head of strategic and corporate affairs in North America, the UK and Europe, speaking to delegates at Retail Week’s Live 2025 conference.
Firstly, thank you to Retail Week for sharing his speech highlights with us. It includes many things we would like to understand better about Shein.
The brands mission is clearly to make dynamic fashion trends continually accessible at the lowest possible prices to everyone.
It has developed a unique on-demand business model that reacts dynamically to latest trends and competitor best sellers.
It has created a unique layering of 5,400 owned and contracted factories that supply with different speeds, volumes and responsibilities including identifying product trends as well as making them.
And whilst it takes full advantage of current customs policy Shein is adamant that…’We do not rely on customs policy to be successful’…’What we have relied on and what will continue to be our North star as a business is customer centricity by giving customers what they want and building a technological and production stack to do that!’
And from all of that, this ‘eye-catching’ statement from the Shein executive… “We don’t cheat. We compete!”
On the ‘cheating’ side of things I guess this largely depends on what we individually define as ‘cheating.’ It is highly debatable to many whether Shein does not cheat on paying it’s fair share of taxes, that it breaks rules on human rights & workers rights, that it plagiarizes other peoples designs, that it does not engage in environmental protocols on pollution levels, environmental destruction, carbon emissions, and any number of other criteria.
And if you want to take a higher ‘moral stance’ many would agree that Shein ‘cheats’ the planet, the environment, society and the world’s inhabitants through its voracious scale of activities. That we feel morally betrayed by brands such as Shein.
I’ll leave each person to contemplate and discuss how they feel about such things..
However, it could also be argued regarding ‘cheating’ that in fact it is the rules and regulations for all producers, not just Shein, that are inadequate and not fit-for-purpose regarding workers rights, environmental impacts, customs tariffs, and product volume wastage.
On these fronts, hopefully it will soon be much clearer through new regulations and monitoring, on what is actually ‘cheating’ and what is not.
But the thing is, that when we come to the issue of ‘competing,’ Shein is undoubtedly a highly successful competitor in the market. Its strategy, operations, dynamics, manufacturing models, distribution and marketing are what have made it the number one in the ultra-fast fashion market. And therefore the ‘biggest enemy’ for many.
They have successfully usurped and brought to their knees previous owners of this ‘illustrious’ title such as Boohoo.
And the burning fact remains that Shein is successful because it supplies a demand. It is the ultra-best at supplying the demand for ultra-fast fashion.
We should discuss, and be outraged at the moral and environmental positioning of Shein. We should ensure that both ethical and actual regulatory cheating is clear and met with appropriate measures.
But the fact is that it is the millions of customers worldwide who are happy to overlook every type of ‘cheating,’ or not, that Shein may, or may not be a part of, in order to buy affordable and fashionable clothing, that make Shein successful.
Without demand there is no supplier. There are no ethical or environment problems. And there is no ‘cheating!’
The demand is the real problem here. And that demand is going to be incredibly difficult to suppress.