Shein: The SEO Machine

 


By Chamarya Roberts


Shein has been a company that I have been interested in for a while from a marketing perspective. I am more of a Fashion Nova shopper, but Shein has taken over the fast fashion scene within the past few years. 

What Is Shein?

If you have ever spent time scrolling through Tik Tok, then you must be familiar with the online fashion retailer Shein. Let's take a deeper look into what Shein is as a brand. 

Shein is a global business-to-consumer fast fashion brand. The term "fast fashion" is used to describe clothing designs that make their appearance o the catwalk and ends up in stores quickly at a lower price to take advantage of trends. In other words, "inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends" (2021). This makes Shein a brand that quickly produces affordable clothing items that are current and trendy at the time. You may know some other fast fashion brands Forever 21, Missguided, Zara, Boohoo, Fashion Nova, UNIQLO, H&M. 

 Shein was founded and launched in 2008 by "entrepreneur Chris Xu, who specialized in search engine optimization marketing" (Nguyen, 2021), which are vital elements to Shein's success. Shein was originally named SheInside, and the only aspect that separated the brand from others was that it sold Wedding dresses. In 2015, the brand's name was shortened to Shein, making the brand more memorable and easy to search. Now Shein's main market segment is women's clothing, but that is not all the brand offers. Shein also offers men's apparel, children's clothes, accessories, shoes, bags, and much more.

Shein is a China-based company that is western focused. It ships to over 200 countries, but the U.S. is its largest consumer market. Its target market audiences are Millennials and Gen Zers. "As of May 2021, Shein surpassed Amazon with 17.5 million downloads emphasizing where Gen Z's preference lies" (Chen, 2021)

 

 

Shein is known for its low prices and social media presence, two of its marketing strategies. Those two factors appeal to their target audience, which is why they are great strategies. I know for a fact my peers (college students and young adults) like being bougie on a budget. Shein has become "one of the most talked-about brands on TikTok and YouTube" (Nguyen, 2021). According to Similarweb, a web analytics platform, Shein was globally the most visited fashion site. It was also reported that Shein was the number one band for TikTok teens in 2020.

 

Shein is known for its fast production of new clothing items and accessories since it is a fast-fashion brand. Shein has to have privileged knowledge about its target audience to keep up with their wants and needs.

How do they do that?  Well, I'm glad you asked. 

 

Web Analytics

Shein tracks its consumers' every digital move by using social media sites, its website, and its app, collecting vast amounts of data on what its customers view and like. Shein has a 5,800-word privacy policy will find an eye-opening list of just how much data is being collected when you sign up or create an account with them. Its privacy policy has 13 sections:

1. Personal Information We Collect 

2. How We Use Your Personal Information 

3. Sharing Your Personal Information 

4. Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies 

5. Security Precautions 

6. Your Rights 

7. Retention 

8. Third-Party Websites 

9. Children 

10. Notice for California Residents 

11. Notice to Individuals in the European Countries 

12. Communications Preferences 

13. Contact Us 

I did not read all 5,800 words; however, I did take a further look into sections one, two, and four. For the purpose of this post, I want to mention information from section four: Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies. Within this section, Shein states that it will use the data collected for analytics, behavioral remarketing, other tracking technologies, and location information.


  • Analytics: it uses Google Analytics, a third-party service, to monitor and analyze the use of its service.

  • Behavioral Remarketing: it uses remarketing services such as Google ads, Bing ads, and Facebook Business Tools to advertise on third-party websites after someone has visited the website or app.

  • Other Tracking Technologies: Shein states that the pages on the website and email could potentially have web beacons attached. The web beacons can allow Shein to measure metrics such as visitors, unique visitors, landing pages, etc.

Shein states that it uses Java scripts on pages within the website. Java scripts are code snippets placed in different parts of the website, along with other aspects of the website. Shein also used other search tools like Google's Trend Finder to gather data based on real-time searched keywords to help determine what styles consumers are into to start producing the items and advertising them. HTTP code and HTML5 are other software that Shein utilizes as well.

By agreeing to this privacy policy, people permit Shein to be tracked. This provides Shein the ability to access their online behavior. For instance, Shein can see "the other clothing brands and individual garments you look at, holidays you might search for, or your likes and interests from social media sites" (Oliver, 2021). 

Conclusion

Shein is dominating the fast fashion industry by focusing its marketing efforts on SEO and web analytics. I only touched on the surface of Shein's SEO and web analytics tactics in this post. From the knowledge, I have gained through this course (so far), I don't have any suggestions for Shein to improve its overall web analytics efforts. 

With that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed doing a deep dive into Shein's web analytics methods. It gave me a better understanding of how these softwares and programs are used in a real setting. For example, I have heard of Googles Trend Finder before, but I never took it upon myself to understand its features or how to apply it to a real-life situation. On the other hand, it was nice to see that Shein utilizes some of the software we discussed and used throughout this course, such as Google Analytics, Facebook Business Tool, and Java scripts.

I would love to see if anyone has any web analytic suggestions for Shein.

Please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. Until next time friends!

 

 

 ~Chamarya

 

References

 

Hayes, A. (2022, February 8). How fast fashion works. Investopedia. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fast-fashion.asp#:~:text=Fast%20fashion%20is%20the%20term,to%20take%20advantage%20of%20trends.&text=Innovations%20in%20supply%20chain%20management,UNIQLO%2C%20GAP%2C%20and%20Topshop.

A list of 41 fast fashion brands to avoid (2022). The Sustainable Living Guide. (2021, December 20). Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://thesustainablelivingguide.com/fast-fashion-brands/

Nguyen, T. (2021, July 13). Shein is the future of fast fashion. is that a good thing? Vox. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22573682/shein-future-of-fast-fashion-explained

Oliver, A. (2021, August 28). How shadowy teen brand Shein uses algorithms to harvest data on its users. Daily Mail Online. Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9936113/How-shadowy-teen-brand-Shein-uses-algorithms-harvest-data-users.html

Shein Privacy Policy for the United States: Shein USA. SHEIN PRIVACY POLICY FOR THE UNITED STATES | SHEIN USA. (n.d.). Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://us.shein.com/PRIVACY-POLICY-a-1061.html#ps-t4

Shein’s market strategy: how the Chinese fashion brand is conquering the West. daxueconsulting. (2021). Retrieved February 14, 2022, from https://daxueconsulting.com/shein-market-strategy/

 

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 17, 2022 at 12:48 PM

    Hi Chamarya! This was a fascinating topic to blog about! I've never heard of this company and had no idea it even existed. Of course, I'm well aware of fast fashion and on principle to not support the concept for the sheer fact it is one of the reasons our planet is a downward spiral. Fast fashion is exactly that, fashion of the moment, meaning it will be thrown away after as little as one use. That being said, there is plenty to learn from Shein's marketing techniques. I do wonder, since it is a global company, how it can do business in California with its Big Data laws which will likely be coming to every state in the union one day. Thanks for your post!

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