https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joanna-williams-4651615a_thegreatfashionreset-activity-7259216147835686912-fnbK
44% of US Gen Zrs buy at least 1 item from SHEIN each month
Knowing your customer’s habits in your own brand ecosystem used to be key to success
understanding their preferences outside of it is the job now
Your data must intersect at content, creators, + communities
b/c Gen Z spend all their free time on entertainment platforms
And community is how it works
Understanding demand for individuals is table stakes
overlaying demand for community is crucial to thrive
Converting real time content into products has been the priority since TikTok
Shein was the only one to organize around it,
generating $30B in revenue LY
Their business model is in stark contrast w/mass fashion
who produces thousands of each design hoping to sell year-old, watered down trends
b4 the sustainability purists clutch their pearls
It's not possible to address our dire climate crisis w/old solutions
Consider this:
Temu app: 167M MAU
1st 6 month 2024 sales: est $20B
They have already beaten ANNUAL '23 sales of $15B
'24 sales forecasted to hit $54B
THEY ARE 2 YEARS OLD
Net sales at Amazon: 11% higher in Q3 vs LY
They nearly doubled capital expenditures from $12.48B to $22.62B,
“The increase bumps here are really driven by generative AI,” -CEO Andy Jassy
Keep in mind
We’ve got a data problem no one is addressing but fast fashion
Past data doesn't capture new behaviors
Social/cultural shifts create discontinuities
Consumer preferences change non-linearly
Network effects create sudden changes
Viral trends emerge from micro-interactions
The solution isn’t better prediction – it’s eliminating the need to predict all together
And just react in real time
The new market: luxury at the top, creator brands in the middle, fast fashion at the bottom
Creators no longer need brands
They will create their own economies in every vertical aided by operators w/experience across the new entertainment value chain, connected directly to
HIGH QUALITY MAKERS
If creators don’t need brands & influencer marketers don’t need brands and it’s all C2M for Amazon / TikTok Shop / Temu / Shein etc
Our world is only getting less predictable
It makes the read & react model the only method to enhance efficiency & cut waste
btw - Shein's excess-inventory rates are now single digits
compare that to the industry avg of 50% (!!!)
and you can clearly see we're trying to solve the wrong problem
and SHAMING the wrong companies
In this era trends aren't just fleeting fads; they're the primary drivers of consumer attention, engagement, & purchasing decisions
The only way to compete is creator brands
It's the only model that
Captures attention natively on entertainment platforms
Moves at the speed of culture vs seasons
Validates demand b4 production
Builds community while building products
Operates w/ zero legacy constraints
They're not invisible in the vast digital marketplace that Amazon/TikTok & Shopify/YouTube are creating....
How do we turn that WHAT and WHY to a new WHOM, which is reshored, sustainable production, democratized for the creator-to-market class to sell to this generation?
Here is how:
SHEIN disrupts Zara and H&M, and Shein gets disrupted by...AI-driven user-generated designs, sent to reshored AI and automation-drive textile production, where products have circularity and recycling built directly into them through manufacturing that can be localized, and able to handle small batch orders with short lead times, and probably single-item custom orders, with all-scope carbon output that is close to real zero.
When...I estimate in 3-years we'll be able to do this.
If Shein does not model this in the U.S., it is the walking dead, and maybe it is anyway because either we consumers are designing what we want or we buy from C2M-types who we identify with and want to support.
That is how we disrupt all prior fashion models (traditional>>>seasonal>>>fast fashion>>>ultra-fast fashion) that are wrecking our environment by turning existing demand and consumer shifts towards an even better model that is sustainable.
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