Inside the Chinese factories fuelling Shein's success
- Jan 29, 2025
- 2 min read
The beating heart of the Shein empire is a workforce sitting behind sewing machines for around 75 hours a week in contravention of Chinese labour laws. This add to a growing list of questions about Shein, once a little-known Chinese-founded company that has become a global behemoth in just over five years. Its meteoric rise has been dogged with controversy about its treatment of workers and allegations of forced labour.
Still privately-owned, it was valued at about £54bn ($66bn) in a fundraising round in 2023. It is now eyeing a potential listing on the London Stock Exchange. Shein's success lies in volume - the inventory online runs into the hundreds of thousands - and deep discounts: £10 dresses, £6 sweaters, prices that hover below £8 on average. The company ships around one million packages a day on average, according to data from ShipMatrix, a logistics consultancy firm.
Revenue has soared, outstripping the likes of H&M, Zara and Primark. The cut-price sales are driven by places like the Shein village, home to some 5,000 factories, most of them Shein suppliers.
The buildings have been hollowed out to make way for sewing machines, rolls of fabric and bags brimming with cloth scraps. The doors to their basements are always open for the seemingly endless cycle of deliveries and collections. As the day passes, the shelves fill up with warehouse-bound, clear plastic bags labelled with a now-distinctive five-letter noun. But even past 22:00, the sewing machines - and the people hunched over them - don't stop as more fabric arrives, in trucks so full that bolts of colour sometimes tumble onto the factory floor. Standard working hours appear to be from 08:00 to well past 22:00, the BBC found.
The factories are contracted to make clothes on order - some small, some big. If the chinos are a hit, orders will ramp up and so must production. Factories then hire temporary workers to meet the demand their permanent staff cannot fulfil.
One of the biggest challenges Shein faces is accusations that it sources cotton from China's Xinjiang region. Once touted as among the world's best fabric, Xinjiang's cotton has fallen out of favour after allegations that it is produced using forced labour by people from the Muslim Uyghur minority - a charge that Beijing has consistently denied.
Sources: BBC, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre
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