According to the latest data from Guangzhou Customs, in the first 10 months of this year, Guangzhou’s total foreign trade import and export value exceeded one trillion yuan, reaching 1.02 trillion yuan, setting a new record high for the same period in history, with a year-on-year increase of 12.1%. Among this, exports grew by 20.5% year-on-year, with the growth rate ranking first among major foreign trade cities in China and first among the 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province.
Since the establishment of China’s cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones ten years ago, cross-border e-commerce has now become an important engine driving the transformation and upgrading of China’s foreign trade. Since the beginning of this year, Guangzhou, which is building itself into a “Cross-border E-commerce City,” has collaborated with SHEIN, Amazon, AliExpress, and others to continuously hold “Cross-border E-commerce + Industrial Belt” activities, driving the city’s cross-border e-commerce import and export to maintain double-digit growth.
While achieving rapid growth, leading cross-border e-commerce enterprises represented by SHEIN are continuously deepening industry and international cooperation. On one hand, they are increasing empowerment across the domestic supply chain’s upstream and downstream and leading industrial upgrading; on the other hand, they are accelerating the attraction of domestic and international local and global brands and sellers to join their global end markets, achieving sales growth. Through initiatives such as launching the “SHEIN Xcelerator” brand incubation and support plan and introducing the “Service Open Platform” for global developers, they are advocating for and building a harmonious and symbiotic, healthy ecosystem for the global industrial chain, forging a new path for promoting the healthy, orderly, and standardized sustainable development of the cross-border e-commerce industry.
Covering industrial belts from nearly 400 cities domestically, empowering traditional manufacturing with digital, intelligent, and green upgrades
At the 2024 Cross-border E-commerce Fair, SHEIN, together with industry representatives like Amazon, the Middle Eastern platform Fordeal, the Korean platform Coupang, and the Japanese platform Rakuten, jointly issued the “Five Initiatives for Promoting Cross-border E-commerce Development.” They called on the entire industry to work together, continuously improve service quality to enhance consumer trust, accelerate brand globalization, promote technological innovation to increase industry competitiveness, and strengthen industry self-discipline to maintain market order; deepen international cooperation, enhance the international influence of cross-border e-commerce, and achieve resource sharing and mutual benefit.
Today, under the leadership of industry leaders, this initiative is making significant progress.
Taking SHEIN as an example, domestically, as a “chain master” enterprise, under its innovative “small order, quick response” flexible supply chain model, it continuously drives the digital, intelligent, and green quality upgrade of domestic traditional manufacturing through “chain-style” transformations involving technological innovation, training support, factory expansion, supplier community welfare, and green low-carbon initiatives. Data shows that since launching the “Five Billion Yuan over Five Years” supplier empowerment plan in the first half of 2023, SHEIN has helped garment factories upgrade and renovate hardware environments such as factory buildings, canteens, and dormitories covering hundreds of thousands of square meters over the past two years. It has conducted nearly 1,400 various business and operational training sessions and invested nearly 3 billion yuan in total to comprehensively enhance supplier capabilities. In the first half of this year, SHEIN invested nearly 30 million yuan in technological innovation and lean construction, conducted over 250 training sessions, while public welfare projects like “Gathering Starlight” and “Children’s Home,” which care for supplier workers, are proceeding in an orderly manner.
Since officially announcing the launch of its platform model in 2023, SHEIN has also been replicating and proliferating its innovative “flexible on-demand” supply chain experience to more industrial belts, driving more enterprises and products to go global with high quality. As of June this year, its platform has widely attracted third-party sellers and brands from industrial belts in nearly 400 cities across the country, covering all categories including apparel.
Simultaneously, leveraging Guangzhou’s logistics hub capabilities and industrial supporting foundation as an international trade center, SHEIN has cumulatively invested over 15 billion yuan to continuously deepen and build a smart supply chain system centered in Guangzhou, covering cities like Zhaoqing, Foshan, and Jiangmen.
From brand cultivation to service open platform, becoming a “Global Co-builder of a Healthy Ecosystem”
After over a decade of development overseas, SHEIN has accumulated a vast and rapidly growing broad user base globally. As SHEIN deepens its platformization, besides sellers and brands from multiple industrial belts in China, overseas local brands and sellers are flocking to the SHEIN platform.
Today, many brands and merchants from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and other places have joined the SHEIN platform, including globally known brands such as the American pop culture collectible brand Funko, the American and global知名童装品牌 The Children’s Place, and the Korean homeware brand Lock&Lock.
Possessing a wide range of high-quality young fashion consumers globally and strong fashion influence is one of the key factors why overseas local brands and global brands choose to partner with SHEIN. Taking France as an example, besides the already-joined trendy sports brand Palladium, more brands are valuing the win-win cooperation opportunities with SHEIN. Just recently, the French fashion brand Pimkie announced it will engage in deep cooperation with SHEIN. It will also receive a “package of tailored services,” such as logistics services, on-demand production, and online order processing, to achieve new growth through SHEIN’s global channels spanning over 160 countries and regions. To adapt to online sales demands, the brand will also adopt a new production process independent of its physical retail and launch product lines with more attractive prices.
For local enterprises, increasing sales through the SHEIN platform also allows them to expand their influence and visibility in other overseas markets. It is worth mentioning that the renowned British footwear brand Clarks, with a 200-year history, also recently announced its entry onto platforms like SHEIN, which will help Clarks reach new consumers and make it easier for them to discover and purchase its products online. Additionally, many Spanish local brands and sellers have successively applied to open stores on SHEIN, helping their products move beyond the local market and be sold一站式 to multiple European countries. Spanish footwear brand Porronet, emerging sunglasses brand Hawkers, and innovative home brand Create have already taken the lead in joining the SHEIN platform.
Recently, SHEIN also officially launched the “SHEIN Xcelerator” brand incubation and support plan. Leveraging SHEIN’s full-chain advantages, emerging brands can accelerate the incubation and cultivation of their brands, while mature brands can further expand into global markets and increase their brand influence, especially their popularity and appeal among young users. Since the test phase began in August 2023, nearly 20 brands from around the world have joined and achieved nearly 3 billion yuan in revenue. Many brands experienced exponential growth in their first year, with an average sales increase of 190%.
Taking the well-known brand Missguided as an example, it is expected to achieve over 1.6 billion yuan in revenue within two years. Missguided founder Nitin Passi stated, “Through Missguided, we have witnessed firsthand how SHEIN helps reshape the brand and push products to global customers, while providing tailored services based on our product portfolio.”
Furthermore, since this year, SHEIN has also launched the “Service Open Platform” for global developers, committed to providing广大卖家 with more inclusive digital value-added services and more efficient business solutions. As an “ecosystem co-builder,” SHEIN injects more developmental “soft power” into cross-border sellers and brands, collaborating with all parties to build a closely cooperative new industry ecosystem. According to previous media reports, although the SHEIN open platform has not been launched for long, over 3,000 Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partners have discussed cooperation and conducted system-side integration. Their services cover product management, order fulfillment management, inventory management, visual resources, and more.
It has been revealed that SHEIN is further integrating platform resources and increasing support for global high-quality products and potential brands, thereby helping more sellers and brands achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcomes in high-quality, sustainable development within the global market, and creating a harmonious and symbiotic, healthy ecosystem for the global industrial chain.
