S5E6 SHEIN’s Marketplace Evolution - A Conversation with George Chang, GM & Head of SHEIN Marketplace

[00:00:00] Preview

[00:00:01] George Chang: if you're 12 to 39 ish, chances are someone in your household is, chances are you've heard of Shein or purchased from us.

[00:00:11] I just put some math together to kinda give that a clearer picture. So like, our platform charges a 10% take rate. You sell on Shein, we take 10%.

[00:00:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm. Okay.

[00:00:21] George Chang: And so that's 33% less than traditional other platforms.

[00:00:25] For, for many, many years. So as I was designing the schema of our marketplace, the ethos of, of Shein marketplace overall, I was very sensitive and cognitive to the challenges that sellers face all the time. Right. And, and profitability, like you said, Casey was one of those biggest things I've heard all the time.

[00:00:40] Like, Within 24 hours, Monster Digital was able to create shirts with them to, with her wearing the 87, his number

[00:00:50] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. yeah

[00:00:51] George Chang: within 24 hours, we were blowing out of these shirts, right?

[00:00:56] Gen Z is gonna drive 90% of digital growth [00:01:00] in the next five years. So it's an audience that, that I'm studying on very closely and, and I hope to be an expert in, we have to be 'cause it's gonna be the, the future of digital.

[00:01:09]

[00:01:10] Show Intro

[00:01:22] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome to Season Five, Episode Six of the Retail Razor Show, the original podcast in the growing Retail Razor Podcast Network where we cut through the clutter to give you sharp insights on what's happening in retail today and tomorrow. I'm Ricardo Belmar.

[00:01:37] Casey Golden: And I'm Casey Golden. Welcome Retail Razor Fans to retail's favorite podcast and the only retail podcast in the Top 10 All Time Indie Management Podcast Charts on Goodpods. Where we get real about what's driving the future of retail.

[00:01:53] Ricardo Belmar: Well, Casey, we've got a special episode today. We're talking about marketplaces again, which is of course pretty [00:02:00] timely since the industry is all buzzing about marketplace and light of little things like tariffs and de minimis changes to imports. But, we're not going that way in that direction today, we're gonna do something completely different.

[00:02:11] We got a twist on the marketplace concept, don't we? If I asked you your impression of the brand SHEIN, what would you say?

[00:02:18] Casey Golden: Traditionally, I'd think of an apparel brand or really a brand that totally upended fashion with their incredible ability to rapid test the market, manufacture to order and ship direct to consumer.

[00:02:31] Ricardo Belmar: And to be fair, that's what most people would probably think of, too. But today, we are going to learn about a very different, very evolved SHEIN, a true marketplace built for sellers, by invitation only, and not just for fashion apparel, but also for beauty, home and lifestyle products. We're talking about a SHEIN that's transformed into a marketplace for the future. Catering to millennial and Gen Z demands.

[00:02:55] Casey Golden: I love how so often we talk with our guests who truly have [00:03:00]something new to share with us and our audience. Perspective pivots,

[00:03:04] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:03:05] Casey Golden: and I always take away so many learnings from these conversations. So our guest today is George Chang, the US GM and Head of SHEIN Marketplace. And he has an amazing rich history across so many brands like Rakuten, New Egg. Sears, Mirakl, VTEX Spreetail, and Cymax Group. George has a unique 360 degree perspective on e-commerce marketplaces, having operated, licensed, consulted, and sold on many marketplaces.

[00:03:39] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, George has led marketplace growth from the ground up, focused on Gen Z and millennial consumers. And our discussion he's going to break down how SHEIN is helping sellers grow, what makes social commerce tick, and why loyalty in 2025 looks very different than it did from even two years ago.

[00:03:56] Casey Golden: Yeah, I am really looking forward to hearing about how SHEIN [00:04:00] is going to help sellers and what their unique strategies are for growth, both for SHEIN and their sellers.

[00:04:06] Ricardo Belmar: Definitely an episode our audience is gonna want to take notes on. I'm especially excited to hear how they're expanding into non-fashion categories and how they're attracting not just big name recognizable brands to the marketplace. I think George has some interesting examples to share, but also really unique value-driven made to order sellers as well.

[00:04:25] And I know he has some incredible examples of of that type too. I think everyone's going to come away from this episode with a completely new mindset for modern marketplaces and how they serve both sellers and consumers.

[00:04:37] Casey Golden: So if you like the sound of that, this would be the perfect time to ask our audience to please give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Goodpods, and drop a review to let us know what you think, or maybe let us know what you'd like to see on the show in future episodes. Either way, we wanna hear from you.

[00:04:57] Ricardo Belmar: Absolutely, and it's worth saying that [00:05:00] it really helps us out to have as many ratings and reviews as we can. In fact, thanks to those ratings and reviews, we're consistently hitting the top three spots on the Indie Management and Indie Marketing charts on Goodpods. Plus our new Retail Transformers show, believe it or not, debuted in the number two spot on the Indie Management Weekly Chart.

[00:05:18] So your help really does have an impact, and we cannot thank our audience enough for all of this incredible support.

[00:05:24] Casey Golden: Amazing. So with that, let's get straight to our conversation with George Chang, the US GM and Head of SHEIN Marketplace.

[00:05:40] Welcome George Chang, GM SHEIN Marketplace

[00:05:40] Casey Golden: Welcome to the show, George. I am so glad to be having this conversation today.

[00:05:45] George Chang: Thank you. It's a honor and a pleasure to be here joining you guys.

[00:05:49] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, thank you. Yeah, we, I really have to say we've been anxiously waiting for this session to have you here to talk about both your, your journey through retail and all the amazing things happening at Shein right now. So let's let's start with maybe [00:06:00] some background but for our audience, and you have had a career across different e-commerce brands and marketplaces, and now, at Shein, can you touch a little bit on, on what led you to where you are now and across all those other places that you've been throughout your career.

[00:06:16] George Chang: Yeah. I, I, I've been in e-commerce longer than I'd like to admit. Seen a lot, done a lot. Ran multi-billion dollar e-commerce businesses. I've been on the merchant side of the house as a seller. Some of the biggest e-commerce sellers. I've been in SaaS, so I've been in and around e-commerce a long time.

[00:06:36] But when this opportunity came across my desk for Shein and I did a little more research quite honestly, I was blown away by, by this company that's done such a dramatic change and growth in this environment. And so, I felt like I had a really unique opportunity to, to lead and disrupt, change and, and this kind of fashion ish e-commerce vertical.

[00:06:57] So that's what really led me to Shein..

[00:06:58] Casey Golden: It's awesome.

[00:06:59] What Sets Shein Apart

[00:06:59] Casey Golden: Okay, [00:07:00] so for some of our listeners, they may shop on Shein or some may not yet. Can you tell us what exactly is Shein and what is at the core of its DNA that truly sets the brand apart?

[00:07:15] George Chang: Yeah, great question Casey. So if you're 12 to 39 ish, chances are someone in your household is, chances are you've heard of Shein or purchased from us. I think what a lot of folks don't realize that Shein is this large behemoth organization. We sell in over 150 countries worldwide. We were the number one rated shopping app by payments.com and we are the number one visited fashion site in the world according to SEMRush. So, I think when you look under our under hood folks just see, like, don't realize, wow, this is this enormous engine that's powering all these experiences. So I think that's what folks don't realize.

[00:07:56] Ricardo Belmar: Oh,

[00:07:57] Casey Golden: Yeah, I didn't realize that

[00:07:58] Ricardo Belmar: I didn't realize that.

[00:07:58] Casey Golden: although you, you [00:08:00] subtracted me from your age range.

[00:08:02] George Chang: I thought you were part of that! Yeah. And, and also, if I could add to that a little bit, it's, it's what really makes us different, what really is in our DNA is we are so obsessed of our customer, and obviously, you know who our customer is. It's gonna be, 12 ish to 39 Gen Zs, young millennials, and we have a very clear, distinct concrete customer.

[00:08:27] And like what that does that allows us to really tailor an experience toward this customer, right? And leverage, different insights, different signals that's really powering everything we do behind. So if you take this concrete customer that we obsess about allows us to anchor to this customer, you attach this behemoth, well-oiled, almost like precision kind of operations together, and that's kind of really the foundation of what Shein is.

[00:08:51] Ricardo Belmar: Wow. So let's dig in a little bit more to that. 'cause this is pretty fascinating.

[00:08:55] Shein's Marketplace Strategy

[00:08:55] Ricardo Belmar: Let's talk in terms of marketplace, like Marketplace 1 0 1. And so how would [00:09:00] you describe your marketplace as being different from other, I'll use the word more traditional third party marketplace and platforms like an Amazon, Walmart, or even Temu? What makes Shein different?

[00:09:11] George Chang: That's a great question, Ricardo. So we just celebrated our two year anniversary last month in May. So we're super excited about that.

[00:09:18] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, nice.

[00:09:19] George Chang: When we first launched, we were super methodical about, our marketplace launch. A lot of it's because, again, we have this really great customer and we want, don't wanna disrupt that.

[00:09:28] And we started to build a marketplace platform and a customer strategy. It was a little different. And part of that is because we have, like I mentioned earlier, a very distinct customer. So that's something that we are very blessed to have that other platforms don't have. We, again, have this customer that we know very well. Has a high level of density in and information about how the customer shops and we can build a strategy around this customer. So that's one of the areas we're different. I think what we're also different is we got a unique platform and the platform is built around this customer [00:10:00] the way that she wants to shop, the way that she interacts.

[00:10:02] So I'll just kinda give you like my hot take on how kind of constructed. So. If you take like one part of traditional e-commerce, the, the reviews, the shopping cart, the navigation, the search, like all those kind of like foundational comfort elements of e-commerce. And then you kind of add like one part of this kind of merchant friendly, merchant centric dynamic where you can get to know the merchant a little bit more on a platform and then you wrap around it this kind of like social AI discovery kind of experience into it. And then that's kind of like Shein as a whole. And then you layer on and sprinkle along this, this loyalty kind of fun, vibrant experience where you come to our site, you earn points, you spin the wheel, you feed the puppy, you leave reviews, you interact.

[00:10:46] It's social, it's fun, it's all the vibrant things. I think that's what really makes Shein kind of different. So, that element of our distinct customer, the unique platform. And then one last part that makes us really different is, we, we [00:11:00] have, one of our values is creating a marketplace and platform that's accessible to customers.

[00:11:06] And so if you look, at how we go to market with our merchant partners, seller partners, we have a low cost doing business. So I just put some math together to kinda give that a clearer picture. So like, our platform charges a 10% take rate. You sell on Shein, we take 10%.

[00:11:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm. Okay.

[00:11:20] George Chang: And so that's 33% less than traditional other platforms.

[00:11:24] And then on top of that, we don't add any marketing fees. And so a lot of sellers that sell other platforms can spend up to 10% of their revenues in marketing. So we saved the seller 15%, right? And so just imagine an opportunity where, okay, fine, I take seven half percent to the merchant. They save money.

[00:11:44] We pass seven half percent savings to customer, everyone's happy. It's win, win, win

[00:11:48] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. Wow.

[00:11:50] Customer and Seller Experience

[00:11:50] Ricardo Belmar: can can you talk a little more about how, from the customer's point of view in that environment, like how are customers discovering new products. I'm really fascinating that you know how you [00:12:00] don't have all the same added marketing fees and costs that so many other platforms charge sellers.

[00:12:04] And that's a big, I think a big percentage issue for a lot of sellers is that added cost that they've gotta absorb right? And on just to be on those other platforms. And of course the other platforms tell 'em the promise is it's gonna help your discovery. To be found on the platform. So how do you respond to that?

[00:12:20] You're, we're describing this to a seller and pointing out that you don't have those fees. If they say, how am I getting discovered on the platform?

[00:12:26] George Chang: Great question. So we have a very curated experience here at Shein and working with Marketplace Partners. It's the same time experience, and so for all of our marketplace sellers, we provide them a plethora of opportunities to do merchandising, promotions, campaigns. They have platform, we don't charge for those, right?

[00:12:42] On top of that, we offer them really hands-on best practices to maximize their SEO capabilities. So if you take a step back and you look at what we've done with our. First party business, the stuff that we make, right? We take the signals, we analyze 'em, we quickly, vertically integrate to design and supply, [00:13:00] create content.

[00:13:00] Reiterate back. We wanna take that same notion, that same muscle and concept. And have that extrapolated to our marketplace partners. So they're an extension of how our go-to market motion, right? So think about it, we're taking the same data signals. We have analytics on our portal where sellers can look and research and find the right assortment, and then they themselves become part of our kind of elastic assortment all coming back to the customer and feeding that customer with assortment.

[00:13:26] So it kind of completes that loop.

[00:13:27] Casey Golden: Yeah, I mean, that's a really good point. I know a lot of brands that when they participate on a marketplace, it's having to go, a lot of fees are having to go into a marketing budget because they have to plan a loss.

[00:13:42] George Chang: Yep.

[00:13:43] Casey Golden: by the time the marketplace is offering these discounts, their fees, their cut, there's not, there's no profitability left.

[00:13:51] George Chang: Exactly, exactly. And I've been on the seller side. For, for many, many years. So as I was designing the schema of our [00:14:00] marketplace, the ethos of, of Shein marketplace overall, I was very sensitive and cognitive to the challenges that sellers face all the time. Right. And, and profitability, like you said, Casey was one of those biggest things I've heard all the time.

[00:14:10] Like, how do you make a book at the end of the day? Right.

[00:14:14] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. What does an ideal seller look like for you? What's the a, what do you consider as a, a good match for the marketplace?

[00:14:21] George Chang: Great question. So I'm gonna give you like my long-winded answer to, to the ideal seller. So when you think about e-comm retail, like overall as a business model, you. You have generally, traditionally, a traditional supply chain where you buy from a distributor supplier, it's in your store and warehouse, and when it chips you have full control.

[00:14:43] You know where the item is, how much you're pricing it. If it's lost, you have return to the customer. You have full control. Right? And then let's say you step one layer outside of the comfort zone of control zone, you have like drop ship, right? Where maybe you control the price, but you don't control where the item is, right?

[00:14:58] And then you have [00:15:00] marketplace, which is even one more level past your realm of and sphere of control, right? And so when that happens you have to make sure that those partners are really under the umbrella of your values, right? It's first hin. We value four things very simply, right? We value customer first.

[00:15:18] We speed, we value agility, and we value accessibility. Those kind of things. And so when we look for partners, we look for professional partners, folks who do this for a living that can share, embrace, and support our own values, right? So that's kind of like my long-winded answer is saying we want others that believe in our platform that are willing to invest every platform sort of different, right?

[00:15:41] That is really looking to kind of feed into this, this pipeline that we're trying to build, right? This motion we're trying to build, right? So that's where we're kind of looking for. I'll, I'll give you an example. We have this seller called Monster Digital, and they're a print on demand supplier.

[00:15:58] They make custom [00:16:00] t-shirts, hats, cups, like all the good stuff, right? And the beauty of it is it's all print on demand. There's no waste right at all. And it's made domestically. So here it kind of illustrate a picture of how it's important for us and how we work together. There was, I don't know if you guys remember, there was an issue, there was a situation where we had like Taylor Swift show up at like Ja, uh, Travis Kelsey's Kansas City football game.

[00:16:21] All of sudden there's this big thing about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey and I, I love Taylor Swift, by the way. She's great. And all of a sudden you saw all these memes pop up by them being together. Within 24 hours, Monster Digital was able to create shirts with them to, with her wearing the 87, his number

[00:16:41] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. yeah

[00:16:42] George Chang: within 24 hours, we were blowing out of these shirts, right?

[00:16:47] Ricardo Belmar: Wow.

[00:16:47] George Chang: to these signals, responding to social media, all these things. And we have a marketplace partner that's helping us respond. So that's kind of like the best both worlds

[00:16:56] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:57] Casey Golden: That's great. I mean.

[00:16:58] Expanding Beyond Fashion

[00:16:58] Casey Golden: The Shein marketplace [00:17:00] has grown far beyond fashion now. How are you curating categories like beauty and home and lifestyle to resonate with millennial shoppers who are craving that value and discovery. Discovery's become more and more difficult these days. And is this curation that you're, as part of your strategy is that what's keeping customers coming back beyond the fashion cycle? Because you've, you kind of have built a customer that comes there for apparel. How do you start knowing what products and other categories to start putting in front of them to get them to think a little bit broader on what they're coming for Shein for.

[00:17:45] George Chang: Great question. It's something we think about often, all the time. So, there's a few ways we approach it. Number one we, we are blessed to have a customer base that's very responsive to us, and we have the, we have the ability to poll and give [00:18:00] 'em insights. And so we've actually will poll customers on, what kind of products you're looking for, we don't have, what price points, where do you shop, what type, would you buy it now, where else do you buy it from? And so in the past six to eight months, we've launched supplements. 'Cause we've polled all these customers to make sure, one, does it make sense?

[00:18:19] Does it, is it within the ethos of Shein? Would you feel comfortable buying it? And two, we get more detail about the type of products, type of attributes, type price points that we're willing to find. So I think that's kind where we start to, again, back to the customer. And kind of asking them like, what do they want? How can we meet their needs? How can we anticipate their needs better?

[00:18:35] Number two, we, we obviously have a very curated fashion element that's already kind of ingrained with us, right? Because we have a high density in fashion. So we know to a very nth degree the type of material style, everything we're looking for.

[00:18:48] We take that same approach and we kind of spread that across these other verticals and categories we're looking to expand and then we take that and we try to create more interesting elements and ways to [00:19:00] improve discoverability. And one of the ways we've done it is through collaboration. So I'll give you an example.

[00:19:04] We actually did, actually on our homepage today. You can find a collaboration with us and Heather Ray, who's this celebrity from sunset properties, a Netflix show, and she actually has a whole curation of products to create with her. And her whole thing is, is actually, is very related fashion. It's like she says, if I can quote here,

[00:19:24] Casey Golden: Yeah.

[00:19:26] George Chang: Having a home is a, a reflection of your personal style, right? And that's in the same ethos we do at Shein as being fashion, right? And it's an extension of your personal style. So I think that's kinda the, one of the ways that we can stay close to millennials, poll 'em what they want, and build experiences that curated and help discoverability.

[00:19:45] Casey Golden: It is funny how related that is. I always say if you looked at me, you could never dress me, but if you walked into my living room, you could probably shop for me.

[00:19:53] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:57] George Chang: I.

[00:19:57] Casey Golden: It's how it's, it [00:20:00] is interesting how that how we do pull it into our home, all of our, our style.

[00:20:04] Most brands see this drop off in engagement as our core demographic ages. That's been a, an age old constraint on your customers growing out of your brand.

[00:20:16] Evolving with the Customer

[00:20:16] Casey Golden: So how do you grow up with them?

[00:20:18] But you've built loyalty very differently. How has Shein designed its marketplace strategy to evolve with the millennial customer?

[00:20:27] George Chang: Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, great

[00:20:29] Casey Golden: do you, how do you look at that?

[00:20:30] George Chang: Yeah, so interestingly enough we were going through the same demographic and you just hit the nail right on the head. We opened Shein here about 12 or 13 years ago, and so as you can imagine now, like some of those initial customers are growing into motherhood.

[00:20:46] And they have children of their own. And so this allows us to test and, in products to see if there's other needs we're not meeting. So it's still the same customer, but their needs are evolving. And so one of the things that we actually were really [00:21:00] successful in is we launched with a partnership with the Children's Place last November.

[00:21:04] And it blew away all expectations. Like we thought we sensed there was some opportunity for kids clothes, but we didn't know how nascent it was. And we realized, wow, what a great opportunity. So like that's one of the ways that we've kind of evolved with our customers by keeping a very close tab on, on how their needs evolve.

[00:21:25] And then it's also like said earlier, the na natural extension of us as Shein growing up, where we're like transforming from this like fashion oriented, pure fashion to like more like lifestyle oriented.

[00:21:36] Casey Golden: Kids business is so healthy. I've worked at a couple like children's wear brands, and I just have to say it was just like a breath of fresh air coming from like men's and women's. I was like, they grow out of it in like two months.

[00:21:53] George Chang: Right? Yes. So fast, so

[00:21:56] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah, definitely, definitely. Well, it's interesting [00:22:00] just approach to describe a kind of growing into a lifestyle brand versus just a fashion apparel brand.

[00:22:06] Diverse Seller Community

[00:22:06] Ricardo Belmar: When you look across the seller community, you have, how would you describe that community overall in terms of are you, drawing more recognizable brands or brands like your example with the Children's Place?

[00:22:17] Or are you drawing more unique niche kind of brands that are doing really specialized, interesting things like the example you had earlier with the t-shirt, the custom t-shirt manufacturer, or is it really just a blend across all of these equally?

[00:22:30] George Chang: Great question, Ricardo. You know, our seller base. It's almost like our customer base. It's so diverse. Right, it ranges from like I said, mentioned the Children's Place, which is a, a pretty well a retail brand. We have large resellers like eye erb who's on our site. We have like folks who are specialized in certain verticals like Monster Digital with print on demand.

[00:22:53] We have brands direct like Palladium, who owns Case West, and we have, marketplace specific [00:23:00] sellers who are just like resellers, distributors, folks who get inventory in all kinds of ways. So it's just a cornucopia of, of different sellers that are on platform. I think part of it's because we have such a large business that they can service different needs, like all the time, and, and one of the things that we discovered a lot of times is, we, we saw a lot of requests for branded items.

[00:23:20] And so actually I have a premium brand team. That's focused on, on getting more brand items assortment on our site to realize, well, that's another way that we can get insight to our customers. And they're telling us they're searching for these brands all the time. So I think it's no way that we leverage our platform for a marketplace and, and how diverse it is 'cause the market's so big for us.

[00:23:38] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:39] Casey Golden: That's, it's a, it's an underutilized feature. For multiple people who do not have access to the e-commerce platform is to analyze what customers search for.

[00:23:50] George Chang: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:50] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:52] Casey Golden: There is so much opportunity in the miss list.

[00:23:59] George Chang: Oh, yeah.[00:24:00]

[00:24:00] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:24:00] Casey Golden: so much opportunity in the missed list.

[00:24:03] Understanding Gen Z and Millennials in E-commerce

[00:24:03] Casey Golden: What did Gen Z and millennials, I mean, everybody's trying to figure out Gen Z. But like, what do Gen Z and millennials want from a marketplace in 2025? And how is that different from just two or three years ago? I could say like the user experience from an Amazon to a Walmart, and gosh, even now, Target, right?

[00:24:26] There's so much, the user experience is just very different. And there's a lot of product overlap I find

[00:24:34] George Chang: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:35] Casey Golden: from one to the other to the next. But you guys are really doing all of this internally. So what are some of those key things that one differentiate you from like your customer base of like how they see you and really what they want from a marketplace now that maybe it wasn't the case two or three years ago.

[00:24:59] George Chang: [00:25:00] Yeah, great question. Gen Z is such a intriguing cohort, such an intriguing generation, and I can say that because my son's a Gen Z'er, younger Gen Z'er and like the way they walk and talk and interact with the world is, is like almost alien to me that the vernacular, they use the terminology like, I know you're speaking English, but I know what you're saying, you know. That whole audience, you know, is, is so intriguing for us. And plus, according to our article I read by E-Marketer Gen Z is gonna drive 90% of digital growth in the next five years. So it's an audience that, that I'm studying on Very closely and, and I hope to be an expert in, we have to be 'cause it's gonna be the, the future of digital. Right. And what we've seen is that Gen Z, they value authenticity. They value pure guidance. They value feedback, they value all these different things. And so if you take a step back to what I said earlier about our platform, like we've met all those needs and it's not coincidental, right?

[00:25:58] So the way that Gen Z shops [00:26:00] is they want the reviews. But they wanna see what other people are saying at the same time. Right? They I saw another article that Gen Z is shopping less on Amazon and now doing more Google product search. That wasn't true three years ago.

[00:26:12] Casey Golden: Right. That's a big shift.

[00:26:14] Ricardo Belmar: Right.

[00:26:15] George Chang: Landscape's changing very fast. And Gen Z is gonna be the most diverse, the wealthiest, biggest population in the history of the world. And so, like we've built this platform that that's figured it out. We figured it out and so again, another article from eMarketer I looked on said that almost half of Gen Zers shop on Shein at a minimum of once a month.

[00:26:39] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm.

[00:26:39] George Chang: Minimum. So your head around that, right? And if you take the slice of gender and just take female, that's a very high penetration, a very high penetration.

[00:26:49] The Rise of Social Commerce and Live Shopping

[00:26:50] George Chang: So I think for us, like we always have our, our pulses on, on the hands of Gen Z. Now another thing that we launched just recently, what that you probably wasn't around two, three years ago, Casey, was we have a [00:27:00] livestream program that we run two, three times a week.

[00:27:03] And we have really a million visitors on our live stream. We have own studio here in our LA office. We host it, produce it, it's something that customers are starting to embrace. So those are things we're, we're trying to meet, anticipate needs of these evolving Gen Z'ers.

[00:27:16] Casey Golden: It's great. No, I'd love to see more like live shopping. I think it's great. It's so interesting on under understanding who goes and, and uses that and enjoys it versus, Who hasn't. I thought it, Ricardo and I made a lot of bets over the last couple years.

[00:27:32] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. We've been big fans of

[00:27:34] Casey Golden: I was just like, it'll never hit in the US.

[00:27:36] He's like, it's gonna be the normal thing.

[00:27:38] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Exactly.

[00:27:41] Casey Golden: So I think it's still completely relevant these days, especially with the rise of TikTok, right? And all of this video content.

[00:27:50] Social media has played a huge role in your growth, growth in the us from halls to influencer collaborations, [00:28:00] emerging live streams, like you've mentioned, how does this translate to the Shein marketplace?

[00:28:07] What behaviors from Gen Z are shaping this specific strategy?

[00:28:12] George Chang: Yeah.

[00:28:13] Casey Golden: in social media?

[00:28:14] George Chang: You are absolutely right. Like social is such a critical component of Shein. We, we are one part social commerce, right? Is what we consider ourselves. And so, we, we were fortunate enough early on to realize that, social was the way to go and had to be authentic again, had to be organic, right?

[00:28:31] And so we had this, this concept that somebody else created, not us, called Shein Hauls where people would just buy a bunch of stuff and throw out and look at like what they, they got. And we didn't create that. Somebody else did. But we built off of that. And so now we have like different teams made to cultivate, different types of influ influencers, whether they're micro influencers, whether they're we have campus ambassadors, whether they're celebrities, all these different things.

[00:28:55] So it is a really, really important part of what we do.

[00:28:57] Now, the opportunity. In front [00:29:00] of us is how do we meld those together with our marketplace platform? And how do we take the best of who Shein has in our influencers and marry them to our marketplace? So I, I have an example. So we, we have a seller who sells ethnic products, ethnic hair products, glues, things for your wigs, makeup on, stuff like that.

[00:29:19] And they do good amount of business. But they're like, they wanna learn how to, to, to elevate their position, how to get in touch with the customer. And so we're actually working on a pilot together between them and one of our top influencers who talks about this kind of stuff. So creating that trifecta between the marketplace, our, our end user customer, and in influencers, all one.

[00:29:41] But they're, Shein influencers, not a random one. They're ones that are already kind of connected to us in our platform.

[00:29:47] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm. Okay.

[00:29:48] Casey Golden: That's really nice that you are able to support them like that because I think a lot of sellers, they need that, they need that marketing support. They need the distribution for audience. It's become increasingly [00:30:00] expensive. CAC is out of control,

[00:30:02] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:30:04] Casey Golden: so, that's a really big benefit that you help your sellers like that.

[00:30:08] Driving Customer Loyalty through Engagement

[00:30:09] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I'd like to talk a little bit more about, how you drive loyalty with your customers. Now, you mentioned before how you even that's something that's different from just a few years ago and how you drive loyalty with customers. What, what does that look like for you? What does it mean for your marketplace sellers, and are you doing things to measure loyalty, or, or do you think other specific examples, how you're helping sellers drive loyalty?

[00:30:31] George Chang: Yeah, great question. I think loyalty for us is about making a connection with, with our customers, but also creating an experience that allows 'em to wanna come back. And our Shein loyalty program and points is a big part of that, huge part of that, folks are always coming back to experience our sites, to, to earn their points, to interact with different parts of our experience.

[00:30:52] If you, if you leave a review. You earn share points, right? If you comment on somebody else's review, [00:31:00] right? You earn points, right when you log in, you earn points. When you feed our puppy, you earn points, right? When you watch your videos, you earn points when

[00:31:05] Casey Golden: So you're really rewarding

[00:31:07] Ricardo Belmar: Every behavior.

[00:31:09] George Chang: Exactly. So you see how we're building that type of

[00:31:11] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:31:12] George Chang: where, where it's fun, vibrant, engaging, you're earning at the same time.

[00:31:16] So that's the way that we created this experience that really meets this audience. Like for me personally, like I don't shop like that. You know, I, I don't wanna spin the wheel, you know, but I'm not the audience that's gonna drive 9% in growth next five years.

[00:31:30] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. I see how you're really focused on the experiences to drive the loyalty and make it fun and interesting so that you basically have a consumer who doesn't even realize how much time they're spending with you

[00:31:42] George Chang: Yes,

[00:31:42] Ricardo Belmar: you're doing that, while they're still experiencing the brand, the content, everything about you and just spending more and more time with

[00:31:50] George Chang: right. And building that social experience, Ricardo, where they're like scrolling down and we're trying to deliver them what they wanna see, anticipate all of that. So like all that's kind of built

[00:31:58] Ricardo Belmar: It all build, builds up together. Yeah.[00:32:00]

[00:32:00] George Chang: Yep. You got it. You got it.

[00:32:02] Casey Golden: Yeah. Um, when you have a catalog this large before the marketplace and now looking at adding the all of these marketplace sellers and extending your merchandise categories. Editing becomes the primary focus, right? Like you have to be able to distill it down, edit it, nobody can, avoiding that perfect, this is enough product. This is enough of an edit to compel that checkout versus analysis paralysis. I, I assume that you know of any company that segments their audience, yours is one I would never wanna be responsible for. It's got to just be an insane segmentation strategy. when you're looking at consumer behavior, is there, are you doing more to shift to consumer behavior that is trending [00:33:00] potentially mi, more mindful purchasing? How do you guys really look at that?

[00:33:04] George Chang: Yeah. Yeah, great question.

[00:33:06] Sustainability Initiatives and Mindful Purchasing

[00:33:08] George Chang: I think that's one of the areas where folks, sometimes, often don't realize how much work we put into things that support sustainability. We actually have a program called Shin Exchange that we launched a couple years ago where allows customers to either turn in and sell their gently used items, purchase used items actually at 6.8 million users joined in 2024 last year, and roughly 300,000 products on it. So it's something that we invested into and we're continuing to build a lot. Another thing we look deeply into is partnering with technologies and also with partners who have a sustaina sustainability element. So for example print on demand is a really big vertical for me.

[00:33:50] It's near and dear to me because one, it has the elements of speed and agility that, that we still love at Shein, but also has the ability to produce things locally and without any [00:34:00] waste. 'cause you print it on demand, right? And so, those are elements that we continue to look at very, very closely that are related to things that help customers think about things that are more sustainable.

[00:34:11] And we also have partnerships with other. Companies like Queen of Raw, who actually will sell things that are overstocked and make other things like that. And so like, it's an element where I think our marketplace actually has the ability to help catalyze some of these sustainability efforts, probably even more than our own 1P business.

[00:34:27] Ricardo Belmar: Hmm. Fascinating.

[00:34:29] George Chang: Yeah.

[00:34:29] Casey Golden: For any of our listeners in our audience. What would they, they could all in the US start thinking about this as a new sales channel for them? This is, I would definitely say, your, your metrics in the business model is very beneficial to to brands and retailers and, and sellers. And you have an incredible user base.

[00:34:52] George Chang: Yes.

[00:34:53] Ricardo Belmar: Mm.

[00:34:53] Casey Golden: I mean, number one, I mean, I've just heard some stats today that was new to me. You're always curious. I [00:35:00] think that this is definitely something that all of our listeners should be, thinking on and get those wheels moving because retail's been shifting for a bit here and this is a pretty significant offering.

[00:35:12] It's pretty significant.

[00:35:13] George Chang: Yep. Yep, definitely,

[00:35:15] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:35:15] Future of Marketplaces and Hyper-Personalization

[00:35:20] Ricardo Belmar: So George, if you had to place a bold bet on the future, if you were thinking about what, what does a marketplace model look like in 2030? How would you describe, directionally are you build, is that something you're building towards right now? Are you almost there?

[00:35:31] How do you view, that far out ahead, marketplaces evolving.

[00:35:34] George Chang: Yeah. For us at Shein, we're always looking ahead. The trajectory of our business is farsighted and we see it's evolving at the same time. So the trend that I would bet on, I would see either in twenty thir, 30, or even before is again, the ability to get even more hyper-personalized, to have even more tailored experiences.

[00:35:55] 'cause as, as we make this transformation from, [00:36:00] fashion destination to lifestyle destination, we're getting more and more closer to how she wants to shop, how she wants to live. That's only gonna get bigger and better and faster. There's a dichotomy of our strategies here together.

[00:36:13] And so one strategy is, for me, like I want to build, the one-stop destination in all fashion, 'cause I, I believe that at least in the US and other countries may be different, that there is no one definitive place for fashion we wanna go to. And I firmly believe that we can get there and we have a right to that business as much as anyone.

[00:36:32] If you're looking for name, brand, fashion, the latest, greatest used fashion pre-owned accessories, any style on the planet I want to have that on Shein. It'll take me a while to build it, but I'm gonna get there. Right. The other part of that is all the complimentary stuff, the things are all lifestyle things that she wants to make herself, feel good to look good, right.

[00:36:52] To live well. I think that's the other area that we're trying to build at the same time, so we can capsulate now. Not every vertical or [00:37:00] seller or categories that work for us. Like I was at this trade show called Prosper a couple months ago. It's a very big show for marketplace merchants. And we had a big booth. It's super busy, and I was helping out, and I saw a guy standing there and walked over. I said, okay, how's it going? What's your name? Yeah, okay, well, what do you sell?

[00:37:15] And he said to me, oh, I have DeWalt, drills and, and I have Milwaukee Power Tools. And I said, wow, that's amazing. Gosh, when I was running the Sears marketplace, I die to have that product, right?

[00:37:28] I was dang people to gimme that product.

[00:37:30] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.

[00:37:31] George Chang: But you know what? That's not gonna work here. I don't waste your time. I don't waste waste my time. We, we have a customer that we, we know, that we love, that we obsess and we wanna delight. They're not going to buy Milwaukee power wire cutter thingy right in the garage.

[00:37:50] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's not gonna happen. Yeah.

[00:37:53] George Chang: so I think, for us being just super hyper-focused, having this customer that we love, that we're continue to build on, [00:38:00] continue to evolve with that's gonna be our ethos. And then we're gonna continue to blur the lines between commerce and social. Like they're continuing to blur and blur and blur and throw almost one other.

[00:38:08] Final Thoughts

[00:38:08] Casey Golden: George, it's been an absolutely incredible discussion. I mean, I've learned so much about the evolution of Shein from my very first swimsuit purchase

[00:38:18] George Chang: Thank you

[00:38:19] Casey Golden: ago. Right.

[00:38:22] George Chang: Millennial. Yes.

[00:38:25] Casey Golden: And it's, it's really nice to, to hear like how close you are building it around your customer base. And I'm completely intrigued on this marketplace opportunity. I think our audience is going to also be very interested and it feels like a very authentic expansion. So congratulations.

[00:38:46] George Chang: Great.

[00:38:47] Casey Golden: What a fun project for you.

[00:38:48] George Chang: it's a lot fun. I love it. I love coming to work every day.

[00:38:52] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. No, and, and it, it shows, and I, I think there's so much that we've learned, I think today just on how this marketplace is evolving, how you're [00:39:00] continuously improving and building on it to really serve that customer first. To your point earlier, I, I think that's just been an amazing amazing progression and amazing evolution.

[00:39:09] I'm just really excited that we got to learn so much from you today.

[00:39:11] George Chang: Well, thank you guys so much. It was a pleasure and honor to be part of such a a, a famous podcast, and so I can say that I made it, you know!.

[00:39:20] Casey Golden: Right back at you.

[00:39:23] Ricardo Belmar: Yep.

[00:39:24] George Chang: Gonna put that in my profile.

[00:39:25] Ricardo Belmar: There you go.

[00:39:27] George Chang: Alright,

[00:39:28] Casey Golden: wonderful. Thank you so much, George.

[00:39:30] So Ricardo, I think this episode is a wrap

[00:39:33] Ricardo Belmar: Yes, it is.

[00:39:35] George Chang: great. Thanks guys.

[00:39:36] Show Close

[00:39:42] Casey Golden: If you enjoyed our show, we have a simple ask for you. Please consider giving us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Remember to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player and like, and subscribe to our YouTube channel so you [00:40:00] don't miss an episode.

[00:40:01] As always, a huge thank you to our amazing Goodpods listeners for helping us consistently rise to the top three spots in the Indie Management and Indie Marketing podcast charts with every episode.

[00:40:12] I'm Casey Golden.

[00:40:14] Ricardo Belmar: Please follow us and share your feedback at Retail Razor on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads and Instagram. If you wanna preview highlights and transcripts from each episode right in your email inbox, please subscribe to our Substack newsletter.

[00:40:27] I'm Ricardo Belmar.

[00:40:29] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.

[00:40:30] Ricardo Belmar: Until next time, keep cutting through the clutter and stay sharp.

[00:40:34] This is the Retail Razor Show.

[00:40:36]