Chinese cross-border fashion e-commerce company Shein has stopped 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 July 29 will still be delivered, and customer service remains available for inquiries until further notice.
There is scant information about Shein in Indonesia. The only data available about the e-commerce site on SimilarWeb, which provides web analytics services, was from September 2020. Shein Indonesia saw fewer than 5,000 visits, a far cry from the country’s top fashion sales portal, Zalora, which had nearly 2.7 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 USD 4.6 billion worth of merchandise to customers outside of China. In the first six months of 2020, its sales exceeded USD 6.1 billion, according to LatePost.
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 e-commerce market in Southeast Asia, where fashion and beauty are among the three most popular categories in e-commerce. 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.
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