At the beginning of the new year, the competition pattern of the global consumer market has reappeared with China's power, and the innovative business model with the industrial Internet as the core has emerged. With its advantages of being highly in line with the concept of the industrial Internet, SHEIN is warmly sought after by overseas consumers, and topped the global shopping APP** list in 2023, which is the second consecutive year that SHEIN has been the champion of shopping apps** after 2022.
According to the market research institute DataAI's latest "2024 Mobile Market Report" reveals that it ranks first in the number of shopping apps in 2023 after SHEIN.
The second and third places are Temu, a cross-border e-commerce platform owned by Pinduoduo, and Amazon, an e-commerce giant.
It is worth mentioning that in the international fashion industry, SHEIN has become one of the world's four major fashion brands, alongside ZARA, H&M, and Uniqlo, fully demonstrating the world-class influence of Chinese brands in the context of the industrial Internet. At the same time, in the list of "Top 10 Fastest Growing Brands in the United States" released by Morning Consult, SHEIN ranked fourth, becoming the only brand in China to make this list.
Chinese products sell well overseas, thanks to the advantages of flexible on-demand on the chain. A fact that cannot be ignored is that the cross-border e-commerce platform represented by SHEIN is chaining more small and medium-sized businesses in China's industrial belt and gradually embarking on a road of industrial Internet upgrading.
Founded in 2012, unlike most cross-border e-commerce companies, SHEIN started with its own brand, and at the beginning of its establishment, it took a path for brands to go overseas. When it comes to the success of SHEIN, we have to mention its innovative model - the flexible ** chain model of "small single quick reverse". This not only brings the possibility of on-demand production to the industry, but also constitutes SHEIN's unique competitiveness.
In the past, in the development of the traditional garment industry, new products were launched quarterly, and merchants often designed and produced goods half a year in advance, and the market response was relatively lagging behind, and inventory was a pain point that could not be avoided. The flexible ** chain of SHEIN's "small single quick reaction" has changed the traditional method. At the beginning of the design, the development of fashion trends was guided, but the starting orders were not much, mostly 100-200 pieces. After it is put on the shelves, it will continue to track the market reaction through multiple dimensions, and once any style has signs of popularity, additional orders will be added; If the response is mediocre, production is stopped.
Based on the successful experience of digital transformation and upgrading accumulated in the apparel industry, SHEIN has copied and transmitted the advantages of this model to more industries, forming a unique model of "self-operated brand + platform" dual-engine development. At present, the products on the platform have expanded from clothing, home furnishing, beauty and personal care, electronic products and other categories, which not only further develops itself, but also brings more opportunities for industrial digitalization and flexible transformation. This can not only drive the digitalization of different industries, but also make the industry closer to the real needs of the market and consumers, and improve the overall industrial efficiency.
As China enters the era of industrial Internet from the consumer Internet, SHEIN has not only made breakthroughs on the retail side, but also realized the optimization and upgrading of the entire industry chain through in-depth collaboration and data-driven on the supply side, vividly explaining how the industrial Internet can drive the leapfrog development of traditional industries to a new height of globalization.
More importantly, SHEIN has not only set an example in the Internet-based upgrading of the apparel industry, but also actively empowered small and medium-sized businesses in the industrial chain to help enterprises achieve digital transformation and accelerate industrial upgrading by providing digital management tools for the first chain and on-site operation guidance. By the end of 2023, SHEIN has supported the construction of nearly 430,000 square meters of first-class commercial factories and more than 620 training sessions throughout the year. At the same time, SHEIN announced that it would invest 500 million yuan in 5 years to continue to deepen the empowerment of first-class businessmen, and establish the first garment manufacturing innovation center to output flexible first-class chain standards.
SHEIN continues to deepen the platform strategy, and will launch the national 500-city industrial belt going overseas plan in 2023 to promote the extension of the flexible ** chain model to more industries, which has effectively promoted the process of industrial Internet and the pace of cross-border going to sea.
Facing the future, SHEIN will continue to give full play to the advantages of the platform and work with more businesses in the industrial belt to enhance their competitiveness through digital upgrades. At the same time, China** has also stepped up support and introduced a number of measures to encourage the development of cross-border e-commerce, indicating that China's cross-border e-commerce will usher in a new round of growth opportunities in 2024.