Shein is one of the world’s largest and most successful clothing companies with sales around $32.5 billion from 89 million customers in 2023.
It also highly questionable labour practices to put it mildly – 75 hour weeks, contravening (even) Chinese labour laws, allegations of using cotton made using forced labour and extreme low pay, for a start – and produces clothes that are dirt cheap and (usually) debatable quality.
It’s realised that their customer base of predominantly 16-35 year old women just doesn't care about all that (despite what they say when asked) as long as there’s an ever changing range of clothes at dirt cheap prices for them to select from. It’s the ultimate disposable fashion. They can buy something, wear it once or twice and literally throw it away, either because it’s no longer on-trend, it’s fallen apart or it’s so cheap they can afford to have an ever new wardrobe.
If you know your customer base this well, it allows you to ignore everything that doesn’t affect them and serve their needs with laser like focus.*
— Know your audience
*Although on a human level, if you can make sure you’re not completely ethically bankrupt it’d be good too.
