After the 90s of the last century, with the improvement of the quality of China's labor force and other related production systems, China began to undertake the processing, manufacturing and assembly of multinational companies' capital- and technology-intensive products. Despite their outstanding contributions to the production chain, compared with the strategic links such as R&D, design, branding, sales and marketing channels grasped by multinational companies, the participation of domestic enterprises is still mostly at the bottom of the U-shaped "smile curve". However, with the rise of a new generation of global enterprises such as SHEIN, which originated from China, this pattern is being rewritten, and China's manufacturing industry is gradually climbing to both ends of the industrial chain with high added value, achieving a leap from quantity to quality.
Nowadays, such enterprises represented by SHEIN, driven by the implementation of the digital upgrade of the first chain and the construction of their own brand strategy, have shown the role of trendsetters in multiple dimensions such as technology research and development, brand building, sales strategy and marketing innovation. They are no longer overly dependent on external channels, but have created a strong self-sufficiency system through internal strength. Especially in the production and manufacturing process, with the help of the Internet and digital means to achieve in-depth optimization, greatly improve operational efficiency and effectively reduce costs, this series of measures enable SHEIN to reflect the unique concept of innovation and inclusiveness in product design, pricing and sales channels, and provide cost-effective products, thus winning a wide range of market appeal and strong appeal.
Pan Helin, co-director and researcher of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University International Business School, pointed out that SHEIN has an in-depth understanding of user needs through e-commerce business, combined with its customized production capacity in the field of digital ** chain and garment manufacturing, and further upgraded the "small single quick reaction" model, pushing on-demand production to a new height, and effectively promoting the transformation of China's garment manufacturing industry from scale expansion to rapid response to market demand.
It is particularly worth mentioning that SHEIN's flexible chain system is gradually setting a new standard for the global industry. In addition to building a close-knit SHEIN ecosystem in China, in 2023, SHEIN will also fully acquire the Missguided brand and all its intellectual property rights, and acquire about one-third of the equity of SPARC Group, the parent company of Forever 21, so that more international fashion brands can apply SHEIN's flexible on-demand chain model with China as the core.
By creating a unique "SHEIN chain", SHEIN has widely applied its own technology to the domestic core garment industry and allocated resources on a global scale. In this process, SHEIN has firmly grasped the technology, research and development, methods and standards of the system, and has formed a global layout with China as the core and other parts as supplements. It can be seen that SHEIN's global influence in the clothing industry is no less than that of Apple in the field of electronics.
The SHEIN-style development model is also worthy of reference for China's manufacturing enterprises. In recent years, China has continued to improve its industrial system and support the operation of the global industrial chain, and is the only country in the world that has all the industrial categories in the United Nations Industrial Classification, and the scale of its manufacturing industry has ranked first in the world for 13 consecutive years. If other traditional manufacturing industries have enterprises like SHEIN, through innovative production methods, greatly enhance the world status of their own industries, then the future of China's manufacturing industry will shine more brightly on the global stage.
In short, SHEIN's success story not only indicates that China's manufacturing industry will shine more dazzlingly on the global stage with technological innovation and model innovation, but also indicates that a new era of consumer demand-oriented, sustainable development and efficiency improvement is coming. As more and more traditional enterprises learn from and practice SHEIN's business model, it is believed that China will play a more critical role in the new round of global manufacturing competition and play a leading role in the process of global industrial chain reconstruction.