SHEIN Exchange second-hand trading platform expands to Europe to promote circular economy in fashion

SHEIN Exchange is a comprehensive online second-hand product trading platform launched by SHEIN. It was first launched in the United States in October 2022. Since its launch, the platform has seen a rapid growth in new users. Data shows that in 2023, more than 4.2 million new users on the US site used SHEIN Exchange, and more than 95,000 sellers listed more than 115,000 SHEIN second-hand products.

Following its successful launch in the US market, SHEIN Exchange will be launched in various European markets one after another. Currently, French users can use the second-hand trading platform, and the platform will be launched in Germany and the UK in the future. SHEIN Exchange can be directly accessed through the existing SHEIN APP. It optimizes the product resale process through a simplified interface. The resale page will pre-list the previous purchase list of SHEIN users and display the "Sell" option next to the product, making the entire resale process simple and fast. Similarly, SHEIN users who want to buy second-hand goods can use the search and filtering tools within the platform to filter out more targeted search results for second-hand goods for sale.

"As our SHEIN Exchange platform expands to Europe, we hope to provide more customers around the world with an easy way to participate in the circular economy and improve environmental protection by trading second-hand goods. As we expand SHEIN Exchange to new markets, we will continue to collect user feedback and find ways to improve the program and enhance the user experience." Caitrin Watson, Director of Sustainability at SHEIN, said.

Caitrin Watson believes that "SHEIN continues to integrate circular practices into its business model by increasing the use of recyclable raw materials in products, packaging, etc., while also launching second-hand trading platforms and other projects to extend the life cycle of products. As an alliance company of World Circular Textile Day, SHEIN will continue to work hard to help promote the fashion and textile industry to achieve a fully sustainable goal by 2050."

Leading user needs and industry trends SHEIN continues to promote the development of sustainable fashion

In fact, as the industry's sustainable development trend continues to deepen, consumer demand for second-hand transactions is also growing. According to a report released by GlobalData, a global authoritative industry analysis agency, in 2024, global second-hand clothing transactions will account for 10% of the global fashion market, and the global market size may reach US$350 billion in 2027. At the same time, the growth rate of second-hand clothing transactions will be three times that of the overall clothing market.

The SHEIN Exchange platform was launched to promote second-hand transactions among consumers and participate in the circular economy. In September 2023, SHEIN conducted a series of surveys on the preferences for participating in the circular economy among 3,500 users in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France and Germany. Users expressed a strong demand for integrating circular practices into their daily lives. The top two methods were clothing donations and person-to-person online resale. The results also showed that in order to promote sustainable development and circular fashion, nearly half of the respondents from the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Brazil were motivated to buy second-hand clothing online.

In addition to continuously promoting the expansion of second-hand trading platforms, SHEIN continues to promote sustainable strategies throughout the product life cycle and process. From the use of environmentally friendly raw materials to the full life cycle processes such as R&D, production, manufacturing, logistics, and recirculation, SHEIN continues to help reduce carbon emissions and deeply embed green development into all aspects of production and operations. This has also become SHEIN's "invisible magic weapon" to lead global sustainable fashion.

At the source of the business model, SHEIN has changed the traditional clothing production and manufacturing methods with its industry-leading and innovative "small order fast response" flexible on-demand supply chain model, which can reduce the brand's unsold inventory level to low single digits, greatly reducing the problem of inventory waste from the source. In the past, high inventory waste has always been one of the chronic diseases that plagued the clothing industry.

Recently, SHEIN also launched the latest sustainable clothing series "SHEIN X Rescued". By using the industry's excess inventory fabrics purchased in cooperation with the sustainable fashion company Queen of Raw, it is reused for the development and design of SHEIN clothing, giving the industry's idle fabrics a new luster. According to the evaluation of Queen of Raw's patented software Materia MX, SHEIN has reused 19,927 meters of high-quality industry excess fabrics for reproduction in 2023.

At the same time, SHEIN's SHEIN EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) Fund, which is committed to solving global textile waste management and developing a circular economy, has recently officially selected the UnTours Foundation as its second grantee to support the promotion of textile waste recycling.

SHEIN is also actively accelerating the use of environmentally friendly raw materials and launching the "evoluSHEIN by Design" sustainable clothing plan. Products that meet this standard must contain more than 30% sustainable and environmentally friendly materials. In terms of process technology, it innovates and promotes the use of digital heat transfer printing technology and digital cold transfer denim process technology. While combining with flexible on-demand production, these digital process technologies can greatly save water consumption. At the same time, SHEIN is also promoting the application of new energy electric vehicles, rooftop photovoltaics, etc. in warehousing, factories and logistics transportation.