Shein has been called the Tiktok of eCommerce. It’s one of the most successful eCommerce store of 2022, It has over 6,000 new SKUs everyday and reviews of its product is popping up everywhere on Tiktok and Instagram. Though many think of Shein as an American brand, it’s actually a Chinese company started by Chris Xu.
Chris Xu’s SEO expertise with social media marketing
Before Shein, Chris was a SEO specialist that had previous experience with another business, Dianwei, which consisted of a team of SEO specialists. This tells you that he’s very familiar with Google’s algorithm and was aware of the advantages of free marketing through Google. He used his digital marketing expertise to transform the online fashion shopping experience.
Chris Xu used his SEO and social media marketing skills to launch Shein to one of the largest and most relevant eCommerce stores today.
Look at Tiktok and you’ll see thousands of Tiktoks made by Shein. They send influencers free clothes with clean and sleek branding and packaging. Influencers then try on products, record a short video and post and share it with their millions of followers.
While this social media marketing strategy isn’t new, Shein was one of the first clothing companies to use social media influencers and first started in 2011. This gave Shein the first mover advantage and allowed them to build relationships with influencers early on. This is similar to other companies like Fashion Nova that understand social media marketing and treat their influencers like gold.
Being early in Tiktok
Tiktok blew up in 2020 and in 2022 nearly everyone is on it. Everyone from teens to grandparents are making 10-second videos and sharing it with the world. People love the algorithm and how much more fair the app is to smaller accounts.
Shein was an early mover in Tiktok and was the most talked about brand on Tiktok in 2020! Shein’s marketing and design team worked closely with the manufacturing department and new trends were captured and the company was able to manufacture and ship them very quickly with their distribution system that was built and made efficient from 2011. This was only made possible because all Shein’s manufacturers were made to use their supply chain management software. That was a requirement to work with Shein and that allowed Shein to streamline all data in the manufacturing process to allow it to make its distribution so effective.
Shein’s clean and sleek website design
Since Shein’s eCommerce store is visited by millions every month, it’s important for its design to represent the company while optimising conversion rates. Its website background is white. Its website is easy to use and there are lots of photos of influencers and models wearing its products.
It doesn’t just show product images but has influencers wearing its products. There’s a live chat and contact button on the top right of the page too and all the shopping categories are shown clear in its navigation menu.
The eCommerce website design can be classified as simple and clean. There are a lot of product images but not too many like Alibaba where you’re overwhelmed. While there’s nothing very special about it, it does emphasise a lot on its functionalities and chat and support features that not a lot of eCommerce stores do.
