Little is known about Shein’s revenue or profitability, but a key partner in the fast-fashion company said on Monday that its annual sales are said to be well over $30 billion.

“Shein is the fastest growing fashion retailer in the world, if not the largest fashion retailer in the world,” Jamie Salter, founder and CEO of apparel brand management company Authentic Brands Group, said during a fireside chat at the ICR conference. Referring to Shein’s annual sales, Salter said:

I won't tell you exactly how much they did, but their turnover was well over $30 billion.

As a private company, Shein has never disclosed its financials, but the company is close to doing so after the retailer confidentially filed for a U.S. stock market listing and spent months working to address a range of concerns from U.S. lawmakers about its business practices.

However, Salter is familiar with Shein's financial situation because on August 25, 2023, the US brand management company SPARC announced a strategic partnership with Shein, whereby Shein will own one-third of SPARC's shares, and SPARC will also own a small stake in Shein.

SPARC Group was previously formed by a joint venture between two companies, namely the US retail real estate company Simon Property Group and Authentic Brands Group. SPARC Group is also the parent company of the fast fashion brand Forever 21.

As part of the partnership, Shein has begun selling a co-branded clothing line with Forever 21 and hosting pop-up events at many of the retailer's mall stores.

While Shein rarely releases its financials, bits and pieces of information have been leaked to the media in recent years as the company has been preparing for an initial public offering.

According to a May 2023 report in the Wall Street Journal, the company had sales of $23 billion in 2022. In addition, the report stated that Shein set a goal of 40% sales growth in 2023, which would bring its revenue to more than $30 billion. It is unclear whether the company achieved this goal.

If Shein's annual sales are "well above" $30 billion, its revenue would still be far less than retail giants such as Walmart (WMT.N) and Amazon (AMZN.O), which have sales of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. However, the figure would at least be comparable to Zara's parent company Inditex, which had sales of 32 billion euros in 2022, and H&M, which had sales of $22 billion in 2022.

Total sales of more than $30 billion means Shein dwarfs U.S. retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch and American Eagle Outfitters, which have annual sales of $3.7 billion and $5 billion, respectively.

During the discussion, Salter talked about Authentic’s story, development plans, and how he decided to partner with Shein. When asked what his biggest mistakes were, he said one of them was not recognizing the competitive threat posed by Shein and Temu early on.

"My partner, David Simon, CEO of Simon Property Group, once asked me, 'Why did you partner with Shein? Do you think it's the right decision?'

I said, ‘This is the right decision, we can’t beat them. Their supply chain is too good… We need to work with them.’

So I was the one who was brave enough to say, ‘Let’s work with these guys.’ ”

Salter said the partnership is still in its early stages as the two companies are still learning how to trust each other. "The pop-up store was well received, but it's too early to say it's great," he said. "So the jury is still out. We're dealing with some people who speak a different language than we do, who have a different set of rules and trust factors than we do, and that takes time. You can't learn to trust someone in 15 minutes. You have to earn trust. ... That's what we're doing."

Article forwarded from: Jinshi Data