Empire z workforce4/30/2023 He gets paid by his friend once he has received payment from Shein, he said. Wu Peiyue for Sixth ToneĬhen signed no contract with his friend, let alone with Shein. The lead times for Shein’s orders are normally just seven days, whereas other clients usually allow two weeks, he added.Īn exterior view of the building where Chen’s factory is located, in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, July 2021. When orders arrive, Chen said his staff often have to work 15-hour shifts to finish everything before the deadline. “He had to seek help from his friends to deliver on time.” “There were times when Zoetop Business came to my friend with very urgent orders,” said Chen. Ltd., a Hong Kong-registered company owned by Shein founder Xu Yangtian. Like most of the people Sixth Tone spoke with in Guangzhou, Chen referred to Shein as Zoetop Business Co. Instead, he received orders via another factory. Inside, the factory’s owner, surnamed Chen, confirmed that he manufactured garments for Shein, but said he didn’t deal with the company directly. In Guangzhou, it quickly became clear that even Shein sometimes isn’t sure exactly where its outfits are made.Īfter over a dozen failed attempts to convince Shein suppliers to discuss their relationships with the company, Sixth Tone traveled to an unregistered factory in a dilapidated industrial area on the outskirts of Guangzhou. This allowed Shein to identify designs trending in the West and produce similar items ready for export in just a few days - a model now known as “ultra-fast-fashion.” There, Xu hired a team of in-house designers and built up a large supply network among local factories. He shortened the company name to Shein and shifted its headquarters from Nanjing to Guangzhou - China’s leading clothing manufacturing hub. The turning point for the company came three years later, when its founder - Xu Yangtian - decided to reinvent the business as a fast-fashion brand. In 2012, it adopted the name and expanded into a broader range of women’s apparel. The firm started out as an e-commerce outfit based in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing in 2008, which focused on exporting made-in-China wedding dresses to the Western market. Despite its spectacular success, the company has a reputation for extreme secrecy, leading one investor to dub it “China’s most mysterious billion-dollar company.” Shein has gone to great lengths to keep its supply chain hidden from the world. “The interests of workers are more likely to be ignored.”Ī view of the interior of a factory that works as a direct supplier to Shein, in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, July 2021. “(It’s) a step backward in terms of the protection of workers’ rights,” said Huang Yan, a professor at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou whose research focuses on labor conditions in China. Though Shein is far from alone in using such practices, experts told Sixth Tone that the company’s aggressive business model - and especially its use of an opaque network of subcontractors - is undermining efforts to improve labor conditions in China’s fast-fashion industry. Shein recruits many of the order pickers via dispatch agencies - a controversial practice in China that can prevent workers from defending their rights - staff at the center told Sixth Tone. Many are illegal businesses and have no formal contract with Shein, making it difficult for the company to verify whether workers are well-treated.Īt a major Shein logistics center, meanwhile, warehouse staff said they struggled to cope with the intense work, which can involve walking dozens of kilometers a shift with few rest breaks. These workshops frequently flout Chinese labor laws and are considered a fire risk, local factory owners and labor experts told Sixth Tone.
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