The Impact of Influencers Promoting SHEIN
About 20 years ago as a new wave of cheaper clothing and trend cycles sped up in the market creating what we call “fast fashion.” Shopping became a more affordable option to many, sparking a revolution of shopping for clothes as an occasional regular activity. More people than ever could engage in purchasing their favorite looks from celebrities and at a quicker rate.
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About 20 years ago as a new wave of cheaper clothing and trend cycles sped up in the market creating what we call “fast fashion.” Shopping became a more affordable option to many, sparking a revolution of shopping for clothes as an occasional regular activity. More people than ever could engage in purchasing their favorite looks from celebrities and at a quicker rate.
SHEIN is an international fast fashion company based in Nanjing, China that has grown exponentially in popularity in the past 10 years to being one of the biggest fast-fashion brands. Founded in 2012, it mainly focuses on women’s wear, children’s clothes, accessories, shoes, bags, and other fashion items along with home and décor at unbeatable prices to many of their competitors.
In the past year SHEIN has blown up as a trend on Tik Tok and Instagram Reels displaying consumers who have purchased multiple items at a low cost to themselves all in one purchase called a “haul” accompanied by the hashtag SHEINHAUL. This hashtag alone has generated more than 4.1 billion views.
Other hashtags around it like SHEINTRYONHAUL, HAULSHEIN and SHEINGALS have also produced billions of views. The movement began during brand deals with influencers and celebrities, promoting the product to common consumers. Many consumers then participated at their own expense, also creating unboxing haul videos. This ultimately brought the next huge wave of engagement. But what is not told in these 60 second videos promoting the cheap, popular $10 sweaters, is the alarming social and environmental cost to it all.
Fast fashion in general has been known to capitalize on low labor costs, even to the extent of slave labor, along with accounting for a large amount of waste due to the mentality of purchasing disposable clothing items that will be worn once or twice.
SHEIN alone produces millions of pieces annually, although their website claims they only produce 50-100 pieces per new product they put out, to ensure that no raw materials are wasted. Yet, they also have no evidence of taking any action to reduce or eliminate harmful chemicals in their products. Along with hardly using any eco-friendly materials. On average they put out around 1,000 new pieces each day, which pressures Gen Z and Millennials to purchase the “new” “hot” style they rapidly keep seeing.
On SHEIN’s website they claim that they never engage in child labor or forced labor, and that if their partners violated these labor laws SHEIN themselves would report them, but there is no detail of routine checks or say of how they’d hold anyone accountable.
Not to mention, each item when shipped in SHEIN comes in individually packaged, single use, plastic wrapping, with the only end goal to throw away after being unwrapped by the customer. Not only is the clothing used only a few times, but the packaging it comes in also is used once, ending up in landfills. SHEIN claims they help incentivize a recycling program by encouraging customers to bring unwanted clothes to their pop-up and college campus events in exchange for SHEIN gift cards, again, there is hardly any evidence of this as well.
Part of the reason SHEIN has been so successful in recent years is because of their social media marketing strategies. Creating partnerships with influencers have created their blow ups on Tik Tok and Instagram Reels, making them a popular trend to get behind and generating more brand recognition. Ultimately, this creates more consumers.
Gen Z and Millennial purchasers have been demanding authenticity from influencers and companies, yet the reality is to only post about “good deals” without vocalizing about the phenomenon behind it.
Multiple research studies have proved that audiences are more influenced by influencer marketing rather than celebrity marketing because there is more trust with the intention and more engagement. Gen Z and Millennials have grown up with the internet and social media, many of them rely on social media where influencers thrive.
The certainty is that influencers have a lot of power leading traffic to a store. Milena Lifestyle is a popular influencer for her finds in affordable fashion. She posted a SHEIN haul video which generated over 36 thousand likes. On top of that video, her following is over 1.6 million on Tik Tok and 1.2 million on Instagram. Here moto is “here to help you feel confident in affordable fashion,” yet in her SHEIN video she never mentions the catch that being confident in affordable SHEIN means supporting a brand with vague ethics.
It’s important to be transparent about the true cost of a brand and of an item. Conscious influencing and conscious consumerism can curb the effects of human waste and pollution along with change the needs of mass consumption and production which circulate with unethical business practices.
