This Chinese Company Is Taking The Fashion World By Storm

The most talked about brand on TikTok in 2020 — topping Netflix NFLX and Barstool Sports — happens to be the fastest-growing e-commerce company in the world, according to a new report. 

The online, China-based company Shein sports an apparel website that outranks Nike Inc NKE and H&M in popularity, also What is this online Chinese-based company? Shein.

Why It Matters: Fast fashion is an enormous market, with a global market value of $36 billion in 2019, according to Statista.

Shein has continued to grow by adapting to the changing market with constant monitoring of consumer engagement on social media sites and offering clothing on the cheap.

Although not yet publicly traded, Shein has become the most installed shopping app in the U.S., according to Tech Crunch, and has become increasingly popular in Google searches. 

But that success has come with criticism, both for its climatic wreckage — as rapid textile manufacturing disproportionately burdens the environment, according to a BMC report — and for allegedly stealing ideas from indie designers.

Designer Ashley Alese Edwards tweeted for people to “please stop ordering from Shein” as she says the company stole her sweater design.

What Else: Shein’s rise hasn’t seemed to affect the largest apparel corporations — including PVH PVH, Children’s Place PLCE and Nike, which have all been trending precipitously up in the last year — but if traders should be aware of the changes in world of fashion, Shein is a company to watch out for.

Photo: Unsplash photo by Markus Winkler.