Time did not seem to be on Chris Xu’s side when he threw himself into the cut-throat world of Chinese entrepreneurship. He quit his job in marketing and set up an online fashion retailer just as the 2008 global financial crisis struck.
Yet after little more than a dozen years, Shein, the company he founded, has seized over a quarter of the US fast-fashion market and its rapid growth threatens to disrupt established global players such as Spain’s Inditex and Sweden’s H&M.
The business is built around the fast-fashion model pioneered by others, including Inditex’s Zara. But through use of automation, artificial intelligence and a well-drilled supply chain, Shein has found a way to do it both cheaper and faster.