Shein’s increased shipping fee detrimental for local online businesses

5 August

Shein

Valued at $100 billion as of April 2022, Shein is a Chinese owned company that has taken over fast fashion. An online tycoon, they update their website with 6,000 new styles on average daily. There is a lot of controversy surrounding this booming brand, with concerns like child-labour, low quality products, design theft and 75 hour working weeks in Shein's Chinese factories.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Maldives experienced a boom in online shopping as well. With the enforced dependence on technology and media, many small local businesses came into existence, and there are a significant number of these local businesses that purchase their products from Shein, as pre-orders.

Shipping Fee Increase:

Shein has always offered Maldives free shipping for orders above $200, and a $24 shipping charge for less. As a result, people who did not need to make large orders took their orders to local online businesses, who could gather similar orders to get them with free shipping.

Now, the shipping rates have increased, each order to be charged $30 for express shipping, regardless of order size, with an additional $5 for each added item.

Dhauru looked into the number of local businesses that have sprung up since the COVID-19 pandemic, catering to customers ordering online, and found over a hundred such pages across social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Most of these businesses are even registered as SME’s.

Since Shein increased their shipping fee, many such local online businesses have publicised that they will not be taking further orders for Shein brand products and some have even closed business.

‘Desires.mv’, one such online business that specialises in Shein products, told Dhauru that it will not be possible for any small business to make a profit with such high shipping fees. The founder of Desires.mv Hassaan Afeef explained to Dhauru how they have been taking daily orders for Shein products, and that he even had hired two delivery persons to have the products delivered promptly when they arrive.

“I have been making a sustainable income with this business without even a day-job, and despite the added cost of two hired delivery persons. However, now it’s all come to an end”.

The increased shipping fee is levied on Maldives alone, as far as Dhauru knows, and Shein has not made any comments as to why the sudden change. Local conspiracy theorists like to blame local clothes shop owners, who have had to face some marginal losses following the boom into online and pre-order businesses. “Ever since we started these online outlets, shop owners haven't stopped complaining about how they don't even get sales made on special holidays like Eid”, another local online Shein retailer claimed.

Despite these interesting theories, it is well known that the global economy is going through depression, and shipping fees have increased in various sectors/industries around the world.