Shein, the Chinese cross-border fashion ecommerce firm, has halted shipments to Indonesia. It ceased operations in the country on July 29, according to Shein’s Indonesia website. The site says that all orders placed before that date will still be delivered, and customer service lines remain open for inquiries until further notice.
Image credit: Shein
There is scant information about Shein in Indonesia. The only data available about the ecommerce site on SimilarWeb, which provides web analytics services, was from September 2020. Shein Indonesia saw fewer than 5,000 visits that month, a far cry from the archipelago’s top fashion sales portal, Zalora, which had about 2.6 million visits in the same period.
Shein was founded in 2008 in Nanjing. The retail decacorn now has a strong global presence and is seen as a serious competitor of fast-fashion retailers like Zara and H&M. In 2019, Shein sold US$4.6 billion worth of merchandise to customers outside of China. In the first six months of 2020, its sales exceeded US$6.1 billion, according to LatePost.
See also: To Shein or not to Shein: the billion-dollar question facing every ecommerce player
Southeast Asia does not appear to be a key international market for Shein. The firm established a formal presence in the region in June when it opened a regional hub in Singapore. As part of its expansion plan, Shein will work with local designers in Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia to develop a new collection. Shein’s spokesperson told Marketing Interactive that it will create a standalone website for shoppers in Malaysia, without revealing details about the company’s strategy in other markets.
Nonetheless, based on reviews on local blogs, Shein has been serving customers in Indonesia since 2018. Indonesia is the largest ecommerce market in Southeast Asia, where fashion and beauty are among the three most popular categories in ecommerce. Aside from Zalora, other popular online fashion portals include Berrybenka and iStyle. Given the huge opportunity in Indonesia, it is unclear why Shein is winding down its business in the country.
This report was first published on KrAsia.
Editing by Miguel Cordon and Arpit Nayak
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