Have you ever browsed the Shein website? Rock-bottom prices, thousands of new garments and accessories every day, and a powerful influencer marketing strategy behind it all. This all has a name: ultra fast fashion.

It is an extreme intensification of the relentless pace and unsustainable production methods of fast fashion, tailored to fit Gen Z — those born between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s — and the generation immediately after, Gen Alpha. It is a harmful and unnecessary business model, especially at a time in history when it is increasingly important to turn to businesses that are mindful of the environment and of people, particularly in fashion.

It is indeed genuinely difficult to find a Shein item that exceeds 50 euros: most articles on sale range between 10 and 20 euros, but you can find things for as little as 6 euros or, in the sale section, for under 3 euros. The design of the products strikes a perfect balance between everyday basics and on-trend pieces.

Founded in China, Shein is a brand with a value of 100 billion dollars — more than that of two giants like Zara and H&M combined — yet until three years ago nobody had ever heard of it.

Shein's success

Shein is not a recent phenomenon; in fact, it was registered in 2012, but it exploded during the pandemic period. As everyone's lives, and especially the lives of many teenagers, moved online, Shein went from 10 billion dollars in revenue in 2020 to nearly 16 billion in 2021. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram, on which Shein activated an intensive "influencer program", proved to be the fertile ground that led the Chinese brand to sell clothes like crisps — partly because, in the vast majority of cases, their price is far closer to that of a bag of crisps than to that of a jumper.

Shein's influencer program is a system through which profiles with a reasonable following on Instagram or TikTok can apply to become brand ambassadors, receive financial compensation and unlimited clothing, and in return create promotional content. Shein has essentially built a system in which teenagers themselves create advertising aimed at a target audience of their peers: in the case of the most popular videos, items can sell out within just a few hours.

On the product side, the marketing strategy is to flood the market with a "deluge" of products — almost 6,000 a day. But how do they manage to produce so many at such a relentless pace? Unlike most brands, which design their models in-house and then commission their mass production to be sold both online and in physical stores, Shein sells exclusively online and outsources design as well.

This system is extremely lean and allows for production at a breakneck pace: every new order is delivered to Shein's warehouses within a matter of weeks and, from there, the garments are dispatched directly to the end consumer. Technology plays a crucial role in restocking and ordering: the most popular items are identified by software and automatically reordered; equally, orders for poorly performing items are halted immediately.

Shein's strength, in short, rests on overproduction: 1.3 million items in 12 months, according to a study by the University of Delaware. A virtually endless flow of clothing made possible by the fully outsourced system and the absence of physical stores. Over the same period, H&M releases 25,000 new products and Zara 35,000 — brands that are themselves already well known for being at the centre of demands, from consumers and beyond, to improve their sustainability.

What does ultra fast fashion mean?

If fast fashion has generated a great many problems — for the environment in primis, but also for the fashion system itself — we are now faced with a new frontier of hyperconsumerism: ultra fast fashion. With this term, media outlets identify the explosive mix applied by brands like Shein, based primarily on three factors: the constant stream of new products and new designs, incredibly low prices, and a particularly effective form of communication based on what is known in the industry as user generated content — promotional content created by users themselves on social networks.

Watching videos on platforms like TikTok, viewers are drawn into the spiral of haul videos — videos in which creators show their purchases — even knowing that it constitutes advertising in every sense of the word.

Other ultra fast fashion brands include the Chinese label Romwe, which is owned by the same fund that controls Shein, the American brand Zaful, and the Swiss label Tally Weijl, among the most well known — but the list goes on if one ventures into names that are not known to the general public and that operate across the most varied markets. To date, however, the undisputed leadership position in this sector remains firmly with Shein.

Shein's workers are paid very little

The many steps that the company cuts compared to traditional brands do enable cost reductions, but not to a degree sufficient to justify the rock-bottom prices.

In recent days Shein has once again found itself in the eye of the storm over the issue of worker treatment, raised by a documentary from the British channel Channel 4.

The investigation, entitled Untold: Inside The Shein Machine, was produced with the help of a reporter who went undercover into one of the factories to which Shein outsources its production, and brought to light chilling details about working conditions at two facilities in Guangzhou, China.

In one of the two factories, Channel 4 discovered that workers — whose first month's wages are inexplicably withheld — must produce an average of 500 items a day in order to receive a monthly wage of 4,000 yuan, a figure equivalent to approximately 560 euros. In the other, where employees are paid on a piecework basis, the rate is 4 cents per finished item. What both factories have in common, however, is a gruelling schedule: 18 hours a day with just one day off a month — not even one per week.

What is more, Channel 4 revealed other disturbing details, such as wage deductions when mistakes are made or behaviours deemed inappropriate are exhibited. Two women had two-thirds of their pay withheld because they were caught washing their hair during their lunch break.

The working hours and conditions reported by Channel 4 violate labour laws in every country in the world, including China. On its website, Shein dismisses questions about the sustainability of its products and its supply chain as follows: "We are a global e-retailer committed to making the beauty of fashion accessible to all. We use on-demand manufacturing technology to connect suppliers to our supply chain, which, being very lean, reduces inventory waste and allows us to offer a variety of affordable products to customers around the world."

Rob Hastings @robhastings

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2) This first undercover report into the Shein supply chain also found that workers have their pay withheld for the first month

The investigation - led by @ImaniAmrani - will be shown in 'Untold: Inside the Shein Machine', streaming on All4 from Monday

♥ 3170💬 24 15 ott 2022 · Apri su X →

Shein never responded to Channel 4, but when pressed by Business Insider, it stated that any non-compliant behaviour on the part of its suppliers would be promptly identified and the partnership terminated.

The treatment of workers is just the tip of the iceberg

The documentary, with direct testimonies from workers, is clearly alarming, yet not entirely surprising: how can a dress cost 11 euros?

The price we are not paying is inevitably being paid by someone else. Certainly by the workers, but also by the environment and by consumers themselves. Just a year ago, another investigation — this time conducted by Marketplace CBC News — found that many products from Shein and other ultra fast fashion retailers such as Zaful and AliExpress contained levels of chemical agents above those permitted.

Specifically, researchers at the government agency Health Canada found, in a Shein infant jacket, a lead content of almost twenty times the level deemed safe for children by the Canadian health ministry, while a bag, also by Shein, contained five times as much.