|
The DTC hurricane instigated by the epidemic butterfly has catalyzed the fast fashion industry to shed its old cocoon and give birth to a new chapter. Countless overseas entrepreneurs are riding the cross-border e-commerce hot wheel and running wildly on the fast fashion track. Following the trend of DTC, stepping on the wave of independent websites, and crossing the bloody sea of clothing. Unknowingly, a mysterious unicorn appeared in front of them, far ahead of them. The rise of SHEIN seems to be a sudden emergence, but in fact it is the result of long-term accumulation. When overseas investors are fully aware of its existence, SHEIN has already left a strong mark in the new fast fashion story brought about by the epidemic. With the continuous influx of capital, SHEIN's value has swelled to US$100 billion, surpassing the combined value of H&M and Zara. Sitting at the top of the industry, SHEIN has also become a benchmark for overseas companies to chase and emulate. Today, Chinese giants are looking at the fast fashion legend created by their Eastern counterparts on the other side of the ocean, and have become apprentices to catch up with SHEIN. In the fast-living and fast-dying fashion red ocean, who will be the winner among the "SHEINs"? Fast fashion is attracting many big brands to start imitating SHEIN SHEIN, which grew up in the land of fast fashion, has a cool, low-key and mysterious style. It was not until the epidemic brought about the DTC trend and created new opportunities that SHEIN, which had been "growing in a low profile" for many years, finally unveiled its mysterious veil under the support of capital. The fierce competition in the domestic clothing market has created a mature and powerful supply chain in the Pearl River Delta, and SHEIN has emerged as a star. In the fashion field, SHEIN ranks first in the world with 3.4% of desktop visits, and its US fast fashion market share has soared to nearly one-third. From 2014 to 2020, SHEIN maintained a terrifying growth rate of 100% year-on-year for six consecutive years. Quietly, a "virus" called SHEIN has swept the minds of young people in Europe and the United States. SHEIN's success has undoubtedly opened up a broader imagination space for the fast fashion track. Following the four key words of fast fashion, DTC, women's clothing, and independent stations , more and more overseas players are trying to take advantage of the bonus to dig out the tip of the iceberg and strive to be the next SHEIN. In June last year, Alibaba's fast fashion independent website allyLikes was quietly launched overseas, trying to compete with SHEIN for the European and American markets. As the pioneer of going global, Alibaba's two major players, AliExpress and Lazada, have conquered the international market in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia respectively. However, looking at the North American market, Alibaba has always been unable to break through the Amazon wall. Compared with Alibaba, which has been unable to conquer for a long time, SHEIN has opened up an independent website to directly enter the heart of Amazon, which undoubtedly provides Alibaba with a new idea: to create a fast fashion DTC brand. AllyLikes, which was born out of this, has a natural advantage over SHEIN's apprentices, thanks to Alibaba's overseas data accumulated over many years, as well as its domestic e-commerce experience and mature supply chain. Alibaba hopes to use this trump card to catch the fast fashion express and further leverage the crowded North American market after forming a strong DTC brand. Like SHEIN, allyLikes focuses on high-quality and low-priced clothing categories, and its target user group is young European and American women. On the one hand, it focuses on cost-effectiveness, and the prices of platform products are mostly in the range of several dollars to tens of dollars; on the other hand, it inherits the martial arts of "speed is invincible" and launches 500 new products every week. SHEIN's popularity is not only due to its low-price strategy and flexible supply chain, but also due to its early use of social media dividends to build brand effect. allyLikes is also aware of this and followed suit to build a social media matrix on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms, gathering brand centripetal force through content marketing and influencer traffic. Alibaba entered the US market through allyLikes, following the trend and imitating the SHEIN model. But at the same time, Alibaba also attempted to form a differentiated advantage through imitation, so it widened the price difference range in terms of pricing. Compared with SHEIN, which focuses on cheap gimmicks and has products priced within $10, the prices of goods on allyLikes are wider, and high-end goods are also overwhelming. It is not difficult to see that allyLikes was given high hopes by Alibaba to enter the US market, but the reality is bleak. Now that it has been online for more than a year, allyLikes, which was born in a wealthy family, has not been able to give full play to its inherent advantages and compete with SHEIN, but has been declining. Similarweb data shows that since hitting a peak of 230,000 in September last year, its traffic has continued to decline, with the current average monthly visits totaling only 16,000. Compared with SHEIN, whose monthly visits have reached hundreds of millions, the gap between the two is like comparing the Mariana Trench with Mount Everest. Of course, Alibaba is not the only domestic giant that covets SHEIN's success. In November last year, ByteDance launched Dmonstudio, an independent women's clothing website in the European market, with an operating model that was highly comparable to SHEIN. However, just three months later, this S-level project collapsed. Now, several months later, ByteDance has made a comeback with a new fast fashion independent website If Yooou. Currently, If Yooou covers the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and other European countries, and has not directly clashed with SHEIN in the US market. Its product categories include women's fast fashion clothing, which are generally priced within 53 pounds. Most clothing products are priced between 5 and 30 pounds, and accessories are basically priced at no more than 20 pounds. After learning from Dmonstudio's experience, if Yooou focuses on the strategy of low price and high quality service. With low product prices and large discounts, it also pays more attention to quality control and consumer service. It can be seen that most users have given positive feedback on if Yooou's product quality and service attitude. Although Dmonstudio died at the speed of light, ByteDance has not given up its ambition to catch up with SHEIN and break out of the fast fashion track into cross-border e-commerce. Admittedly, ByteDance’s size has given it a strong foundation for cross-border business, but its weak e-commerce attributes have hindered its success, and neither third-party platforms nor TikTok’s social e-commerce have taken off. Therefore, turning to the fast fashion independent website, which is currently popular, and replicating SHEIN’s successful experience has become another way to break through. In fact, ByteDance has already laid many hidden chess pieces in the fast fashion track. Industry insiders have previously revealed that it has already acquired a number of small-scale fast fashion independent websites. Even if Dmonstudio is closed, it will continue to run related businesses through other domain names. Shortly after Dmonstudio was shut down, If Yooou built a social media matrix on platforms such as Youtube. If SHEIN, which started out by riding on the dividends of social media, is now developing in the direction of becoming the TikTok of the fast fashion independent station circle, then ByteDance's ambition is to replicate the next SHEIN. It is not difficult to find some commonalities between Alibaba and ByteDance. Even if they have mature domestic e-commerce experience and resources, it is not easy to connect them to cross-border e-commerce. Alibaba, which relies on third-party platforms such as Lazada and AliExpress to support its overseas business, has not made a real breakthrough after years of hard work, while ByteDance, which runs both social e-commerce and third-party platforms, has also suffered repeated setbacks. The rise of SHEIN gave them a glimpse of another possibility: reducing the dimension to an independent site, using the fast fashion women's clothing track, which is the most profitable, as a breakthrough point, and then extending its tentacles to more tracks, consumer groups and markets, gradually eroding the overseas territory. However, can reality really run according to the predetermined trajectory? The differences among Shein's apprentices: Fommos retreats, Cider advances Although all of them are chasing the fast fashion trend, the joys and sorrows of SHEIN apprentices are different. As the truth about OEM came to light, Antarctic E-commerce, which saw both traffic and reputation decline, fell into a dilemma of slowing performance. Obviously, the crowded domestic market could hardly give it more room for growth. Antarctic E-commerce, eager to break out of the situation, set its sights on cross-border e-commerce with richer imagination, and under the influence of the SHEIN storm, built its own cross-border brand Fommos in the form of an independent website. Fommos, which is still in its infancy, regards SHEIN as a beacon for going overseas and positions itself as an independent women's clothing website for the European and American markets. Nanji E-commerce is well aware of SHEIN's flexible supply chain code. Its founder Zhang Yuxiang has visited more than 30 of its factories. For this reason, Fommos tried to build the same underlying structure by integrating the supply chain that it has cultivated for many years. On the other hand, leveraging social media to build a traffic moat is also one of the secrets of SHEIN's rise. Fommos followed SHEIN's footsteps in attracting traffic, established a social media camp on platforms such as Facebook, and vigorously recruited outstanding talents such as overseas KOL marketing managers and Google advertising optimizers. The cross-border blueprint drawn by Antarctic E-commerce is obvious: replicating the SHEIN model and using the fast fashion track as a stepping stone for cross-border e-commerce, from verticalization to comprehensive categories, and from independent brand sites to platformization. However, after several twists and turns, Fommos failed to run according to the established track. According to data from Similarweb, the global ranking of Fommos official website in August was outside the top 10 million, with less than 5,000 visits per month. The first half financial report of Antarctic E-commerce showed that its export e-commerce business, including Fommos, only achieved a revenue of 14,100, accounting for approximately 0%. It can be said that today's Fommos is like a candle in the wind, about to flicker out, and Antarctic E-Commerce's attempt to imitate SHEIN has almost failed. Another company that followed SHEIN but failed halfway was the independent women's clothing website launched by ByteDance. Dmonstudio, which claimed to be a competitor to SHEIN and backed by ByteDance, closed down after only three months of operation. The former CEO of DingTalk also dreamed of riding on the fast fashion wave to create the next SHEIN, but ultimately gave in to the high walls and turned to the 3C field. Countless SHEIN successors have awakened in the storm of fast fashion and DTC, standing on SHEIN's shoulders to replicate its success and follow SHEIN's path. However, they have never been able to break through the high wall. SHEIN still stands, while the apprentices fall silently. Of course, there are also some followers who have taken a differentiated path from SHEIN. Although they are still far from matching it, they are full of vitality. Cider, an independent women's clothing website founded in 2020, is also a new force in the SHEIN storm. Although Cider has the outline of SHEIN, it has the courage to break away from SHEIN's inertial thinking. Cider, which does not follow the usual imitation path, completed four rounds of financing within a year after its establishment and quickly became one of the fast fashion unicorns. The success of SHEIN has opened up new ideas for brands to expand overseas, but it has also limited many brands to the established framework and blindly highlight the SHEIN color. Although Cider is also a fast fashion women's clothing brand, it focuses more precisely on the Z generation female market through segmentation. Ins style is the brand impression given to Cider by consumers. Its website design is simple and refreshing with bright colors. The product guide caters to the consumption preferences of Generation Z. The overall youthful style has fully shortened the distance with consumers. The product positioning pursues quality and design sense, covering new styles such as Y2K, retro, and Korean girl groups, accurately hitting the orientation of young people in Europe and the United States. Although Cider has borrowed from SHEIN in terms of product categories and supply chain models, its brand positioning and marketing strategy are unique. On the one hand, SHEIN is gradually becoming Amazon-like, with a large and complex product range. Cider, on the other hand, focuses on clothing categories around the needs of Generation Z consumers, aiming to create a trendy and avant-garde fast fashion brand. On the other hand, like SHEIN, Cider has laid out a complete social media matrix and relies on content creation and influencer marketing to attract customers. However, Cider pays more attention to establishing a deep emotional connection with consumers and conducts social media operations based on the characteristics of Generation Z. In addition to attracting customers and bringing in goods, Cider also attempts to create an open community called Cidergang to strengthen user stickiness through social interactions. As apprentices of SHEIN, Fommos only learned the form but not the spirit, while Cider was a disciple of SHEIN but formed his own style. In the end, their fates were very different. I love SHEIN: always imitated, never surpassed With S HEIN being such a great example, it is difficult for imitators to keep up. Starting from the cheap supply chain in the Pearl River Delta, riding the giant ship of independent stations across the ocean, starting from North America, SHEIN's brand story from the East Eighth District has been written. Now SHEIN's footprints have spread to more than 220 countries and regions. When cross-border e-commerce enters the deep waters, the brand awareness of those who used to rely on third-party platforms for survival has begun to awaken, and they have turned to follow SHEIN's footsteps and rush to the independent station track of self-reliance. When the account bans surged, the SHEIN model became the beacon that illuminated the direction of DTC, but it could not escort the way forward for those who went overseas. Brands that failed to establish a protective shield would eventually be engulfed by the raging waves. Therefore, the newcomers were wiped out in a blink of an eye, and our SHEIN has always been imitated but never surpassed. In the 20 years since the outbreak of the epidemic, fast fashion brands have sprung up like mushrooms under the enthusiastic pursuit of capital, with the total amount of financing reaching 5.47 billion yuan. For these new brands that lack foundation, the early development can only be achieved by burning money to expand rapidly. However, under the pressure of soaring costs and sluggish consumption, the market has gradually returned to rationality, and the brand's hematopoietic ability has been stretched without the capital cow. Although the fast fashion industry is about rapid growth and rapid death, the passion of newcomers is unlikely to ignite the speed of brand advancement in a short period of time. Even a brand as glamorous as SHEIN has gone through more than a decade of hard work and dormancy. The secrets of SHEIN's rise have long been cracked: the low-price strategy that broke through the floor, the flexible model of small orders and quick response, and viral social media marketing. However, it is almost impossible to copy and paste it. One of the factors that made SHEIN popular was that it caught up with the best era of Internet marketing. Back more than a decade ago, overseas social media was in its infancy. Not only was KOL sales not yet commercialized, but traffic costs were also relatively low. SHEIN, with its keen sense of smell, also became a fast fashion pioneer that seized the social media dividend and laid out promotion channels such as Facebook and Instagram early on. SHEIN, which seized the opportunity to play with social media, successfully built a solid marketing fortress. However, for SHEIN's younger generation, the golden age of dividends has passed. Now, with countless players rushing into the market, the fierce competition has accelerated the surge in advertising costs. Not only that, the fall of Apple's privacy policy has blocked the precise delivery of social media marketing. The advantage of independent websites is that they enhance user stickiness through brand power, thereby strengthening their retention and repurchase rate, which in turn helps to reduce traffic costs. Today, SHEIN has achieved a perfect closed loop of this model, but most brands are still at the stage of burning money to attract traffic and build brand power. Under the limitations of the times, it is almost difficult to replicate the same traffic empire. Another insurmountable wall is the powerful and flexible supply chain that SHEIN relies on for its rapid growth. In the fast fashion competition, only speed can win. In order to cater to the strategy of small orders, quick response and real-time sales, SHEIN has been diving into the long-term layout of the supply chain since 2014. With the advantages of advanced domestic manufacturing industry, SHEIN has built a flexible and quick-response supply chain in Panyu, Guangzhou, backed by tens of thousands of clothing factories in the Pearl River Delta. With the help of technology, it has integrated the algorithm data of the front end to complete the iterative upgrade of the supply chain information system. Through this powerful and meticulous digital system, SHEIN has achieved efficient and transparent management of the interlocking supply process. In simple terms, it means timely monitoring and collecting user data to capture the latest fashion trends, and then feeding them back to the supply chain, while accurately controlling the factory's production delivery time to achieve the conversion of data into orders. However, it took SHEIN nearly a decade to build this moat, which required not only sufficient financial support, but also long-term accumulation and innovation. More importantly, only by establishing in-depth cooperation with factories and improving supplier loyalty can its small-order, fast-response operational needs be met. Even if SHEIN apprentices don't hesitate to spend money in the short term, these can't be achieved overnight. Fast fashion is both a race and an endurance game. With more players disrupting the game, the time left for them is limited. The birth of the SHEIN myth conforms to the timing of fast fashion, the location of social media, and the market. Everyone wants to be SHEIN, but there will never be the next SHEIN. In the fast fashion race where speed and passion are bursting out, instead of following SHEIN step by step, those going overseas should break away from SHEIN's shadow and show the charm of the oriental brand with their unique self.
|
