Read more: Visit website E-commerce giant Shein is spreading its arms to envelope more than just the fashion and apparel for which it's known—and it's starting to look like another familiar online market platform in the process.
Shein is wooing brands such as household goods conglomerate Colgate-Palmolive , toy maker Hasbro , and skincare brands to sell their products in its marketplace, Reuters reported Tuesday. The company, known for affordable and stylish clothes—albeit made with concerns about labor practices and its environmental impact—is taking steps to create a platform that is everything to everyone.
"Everybody associates Shein with fashion, but we are doing all verticals," Christina Fontana, Shein's senior director of brand operations for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said at a Paris conference on April 17, according to Reuters.
"Our consumers want brands, [so] if that's what they're looking for, that's what we're going to give them," she added.
Shein's outward expansion is a clear tactic to take a bigger piece of the e-commerce pie, Steve Tadelis, economic analysis and policy professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told Fortune .
Shein has the largest fast-fashion market share in the U.S, and its annual profit doubled to $2 billion in 2023 from the year before. It's eyeing an IPO and a whopping $90 billion valuation . While the size of its retail empire still pales in comparison to Amazon's stranglehold on 38% of the U.S. e-commerce market, Tadelis said Shein will want to go after the industry leader.
"It shouldn't be surprising that with all of the regulators around the world and talking about the Amazon monopoly that needs to be reined in, well, Shein is now taking a bite out of their apple and will probably take more of those bites," he said.
Shein, a China-based fast-fashion platform founded by billionaire Sky Xu in 2008, has skyrocketed to success and 45 million monthly users through its massive and efficient production and distribution strategies.
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