Ultra-fast and Customer-Focused Fashion Site Shein Launches Resale

I'll be honest, I didn't expect to like this one. But the more I looked, the more I saw to like. Let's set aside one thing first.

This will not rehabilitate or bolster their "circular economy" credibility. However, it might just delight their customers.

From my checks on the website and the app, it does not appear that the program is available yet (launching next year). Here are my few takeaways from this initiative:

First, consider the fact that Shein is responding to its customers. There are likely hundreds of thousands of Shein listings on eBay (I couldn’t tell because eBay stops counting at 65,000), and while I couldn’t directly count Poshmark Shein listings, I Googled Shein on the Poshmark domain and came up with over 500,000 results. That is a lot of resale activity by any metric.

Second, I found from Shein’s press release that Shein did not build this resale marketplace on its own. It’s powered by a third-party marketplace provider called Treet which powers resale marketplaces for brands like Coclico and Boyish.

Third, the company can integrate the resale marketplace directly into the user’s purchase history, something I wish eBay had done like 20 years ago. This purchase history integration will make the marketplace accessible to its user base.

Finally, Shein says it plans to launch the initiative formally next year after piloting this year.

I think this is a savvy move by Shein and it seems clear that the company is responding to what its customers are doing. This makes me bullish on the idea of a Shein resale marketplace, if not the idea of Shein as a fast-fashion brand.

While other brands like Athleta have partnered with Thredup, launching its own site gives the brand much better control over its customer’s experience while reducing the fees paid by the buyers simultaneously.

A win-win.