After the controversy that arose in 2021 when it was discovered that the Chinese brand did not make public the working conditions of its factories and the labels of its workers asking for help that went viral (but not verified), the giant low cost is back in the spotlight. An undercover investigation for an English documentary, “Untold: Inside the Shein Machine”, has found new precarious clues of the Chinese workers who make clothes for Shein.
“Untold: Inside the Shein Machine”
Findings shared by Channel 4 with The Paper ensure that they pay three pence an itemits employees work 18 hours a day and have no weekends off, only one day a month.
As published by this English medium, this report has also discovered that workers of the firm are withheld from payment during the first month.
Rob Hastings, the journalist for said medium, assures on his Twitter profile that a woman under a pseudonym secretly filmed inside two factories in Guangzhou, in southeastern China. According to him, in the documentary she narrates that she took jobs producing Shein blouses that sell for £1.49 in the UK. And he declared: “It was really scary, someone is putting their life on the line to do this.”
Hastings explains that to the workers of the first factory they are paid a monthly base salary of 4,000 yuan (56.69 euros) to make 500 garments a day.
“Many stay late to earn a commission of 2 pence per item. Those in the second factory have no basic salary, instead they get 3 pence for each item they produce.”
She also talks about how the women who work there are forced to wash their hair during their lunch hour of the little free time they have and underlines the horrible treatment they receive because if they make a mistake, they are fined two-thirds of their daily wages. Something that ensures “violates Shein’s code of conduct for suppliers and Chinese law”.
Hastings says that Untold also analyzes the web with a marketing expert and the latter concludes that it uses lots of obscure patterns.
Other famous accusations leveled against Shein
The e-commerce he is also accused of copying designs and this appears in the documentary with examples. Other scandals related to the brand that we do not know if they are covered in the documentary are its exaggerated and poorly done touch-ups and its great failures when moving from an online channel to an offline one at the hands of its pop up.
“Untold: Inside the Shein Machine”
Shein has responded to the terrible accusations denying the acts and assuring that he will investigate them thoroughly.
Shein’s success, undeniable
Let us remember that the Chinese Shein has a user share of 62% in Spain, ranks second in the top 10 most downloaded shopping apps, and is valued at 92,000 million euros. During the pandemic, its market share grew to overtake H&M and Zara as “the largest fast fashion retailer” in the US by sales, according to an Earnest Research report published in June.
According to a report published by BoF, Shein’s business model is much faster than that of other online giants such as Zara. Compared, has put more than 300,000 products for sale than Zara this year.
Traditional Zara customers, for example, now shop at Shein and even highlight things the Chinese firm does that they would like to see in other brands. If the data announced by this documentary is true, we already know something that they should not like so much.
Cover photo | Capture of the Shein website made by Trendencias
Photos | Channel 4
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