Webshop Shein is expected to post sales of 24.1 billion euros this year, according to sources in the American business newspaper The Wall Street Journal. The originally Chinese fashion company could almost keep up with the market leaders H&M and Zara in terms of sales. Shein is only ten years old.

According to the sources of the business newspaper, the company has also been profitable since 2019. It is unclear whether this is true, Shein does not disclose any figures.

Based in Singapore, Shein has grown rapidly in recent years. The fast fashion company sells a wide range of clothes at very low prices. Shein also tries to respond quickly to changing fashion trends that appear online or on the runway.

According to one of the company’s owners, Molly Miao, Shein is “cost-effective” because very few items go unsold. “Out of 100 products we make, 98 are sold,” she previously told the Wall Street Journal.

Big competitor

Recently, the clothing giant has become a major competitor to European companies like H&M and Zara. Zara had sales of 27.6 billion euros last year. This year, sales increased slightly in the first half of the year. That’s because people started shopping more after the Corona lockdown. H&M had sales of 18.2 billion euros in 2021. This retailer’s sales also increased in the first half of 2022.

The big difference between H&M and Zara and Shein is that the first two chains have stores next to their web shops, Shein only sells online.

Exploitation in Shein factories

It was revealed this month that garment workers who work at Shein’s Chinese factories work 18-hour days, don’t have weekends and are only paid a third of their wages if they make a mistake. Investigative journalists from the British broadcaster Channel 4 went undercover into the company. Many of their findings coincide with the conclusions of the Swiss advocacy group Public Eye, which spoke to ten employees at Shein production sites in Guangzhou last year.

“These results do not surprise us,” said spokesman Wyger Wentholt of the Dutch organization Schone Kleren Campagne at the time. “This kind of excess is part of ultra-fast fashion. Factories have to cope with extremely short order and delivery times, which puts enormous pressure on textile workers. Aside from the ridiculous salary and reprimands when people make a mistake, female workers in particular are more likely to deal with violence during the night hours.”