How to Sell on Shein: A Detailed Guide

Combining the rapid demand in fast fashion with our guide on ‘how to sell on Shein’ gives you the most effective roadmap to enter and succeed in the thriving apparel market. Most importantly, you’ll be able to reach the correct audience.

Shein entered the market and redefined affordability to an extent that made a major impact on how trends revolve. Imagine a platform that brings together buyers eager to hunt for the season’s fresh finds— which makes it an amazing opportunity for sellers to showcase their fashion-forward pieces.

Whether you’re an emerging entrepreneur or a seasoned seller, your initial journey is going to be the same. Here we are going to walk you through the foundational steps— from the signup process to marketing your products. So, let’s dive in to see how you can make a splash in Shein’s bustling marketplace!

Quick Guide:

• What is Shein? 
• What products can you sell on Shein Marketplace?
• Who can become Shein sellers?
• Documents required to sell on Shein
• How to sell on Shein: Step-by-step guide
• What are Shein Marketplace fees?
• What are the benefits of selling on Shein Marketplace?
• Final thoughts

What is Shein? 

Shein is a global online fast-fashion retailer of Chinese origin available in over 150 countries with major markets spread across the U.S., Brazil, Ireland, and Southern China. Shein has captured 50% of the fast fashion market share in the U.S.

It is recognized for its trendy and affordable apparel, accessories, toys, appliances, pet supplies, and home goods/decor. It was first launched in 2012 as SheInside and the name eventually morphed into Shein during their relaunch in 2015. 

The recent valuation of Shein has reached 100 billion U.S. dollars and the platform has recently been tagged as the second most downloadable shopping app globally with 251 million+ downloads. 

Especially in the U.S., you can sell on Shein to enjoy certain tax benefits on low-priced imports. This led the platform to grow massively among resellers as they could leverage bulk availability and low pricing of Shein to sell on other e-commerce platforms. 

In 2023 Shein beat Amazon among the most downloaded apps. As an answer to this, Amazon took a major step and waived merchant fees for sellers dealing in clothing and apparel. This not only proved Shein’s dominance over the fashion e-retail but also proved despite the controversies its place is quite unwavering. 

What products can you sell on Shein Marketplace?

There are several sections under the Shein website, viz, 

• Women’s Clothing
• Kids clothing
• Curve (plus-sized section)
• Men’s Clothing
• Shoes
• Underwear
• Sleepwear
• Home & Kitchen
• Jewelry & Accessories 
• Beauty & Health 
• Baby & Maternity
• Bags & Luggage
• Sports & Outdoors 
• Home
• Textiles
• Electronics
• Toys & Games 
• Tools & Home Improvement
• Office & School Supplies
• Pet Supplies
• Appliances  
• Automotive

Who can become Shein sellers?

Before you wonder ‘How to sell on Shein’ successfully, make sure you’re a:

1. Established business entities: Shein is an open marketplace for private label owners and suppliers.
2. Revenue cutoff: Make sure your monthly revenue is $5 million or above before diving into the nitty gritty of ‘How to sell on Shein’. This signals the platform that your business entity has a well-structured high performing business model.
3. Location and logistics: Your business establishment has to be registered under U.S jurisdiction you ship directly to U.S citizens.

For Resellers, there is no separate requirement. If you have the seller’s requirements, you automatically qualify for reselling.

Your journey must begin with an application through the Shein Marketplace. Make sure you have a few documents handy before you go ahead with it. We’ve shared a checklist below to make sure you keep everything ready before the process begins.

Documents required to sell on Shein

• Certificate/articles of Incorporation
• Latest W-9 form / W-8BEN-E form
• Trademark Registration Certificate
• Shop Logo (HD PNG file)
• ID Card, Driver’s License, or Passport (of company representative)Who is the target audience of Shein?

Shein has taken over the fashion ecommerce sector primarily depending on the preferences of younger millennials and GenZs. To quote a number, the fast fashion platform is the most popular among consumers who are now between the ages of 18 and 35. This particular demography has the most affinity towards fast fashions adapting to the ebbs and flows of trends (or trend recycling). 

For sellers wondering how to sell on Shein and make the most out of it, we have good news; the massive reach of Shein led the e-commerce tycoon to leverage worldwide data insights to understand the customers better, forecast trends, and adapt to the changes quickly to keep up with the dynamic nature of trends. 

But how can sellers like you have access to these insights? Sellers have access to Shein’s backend tools offering product performance monitoring, identifying trends, and indicating which items to stock. Once you are thorough with how to sell on Shein online, you’ll have a better understanding of these tools.

Shein consistently evolves and delivers a wide variety of styles that feed diverse tastes. Hence, it boasts its massive inventory and almost 200 new style launches daily. This attracts fashion-forward digital natives who follow micro trends and who tend to buy more affordable products to stay within their budget

So to tap into the various choices of the enormous user base, learning how to sell on Shein holds utmost importance. We’ve often seen Shein collaborating with micro-influencers to promote new trends and boost sales.

Among these changing aesthetics, buyers often reach out for accessories and home goods to match their taste in clothes. For example, we can often see individuals who adopt “Kawaii” fashion reach out for Anime character-themed posters, doormats, bags, or even gadget accessories. Shein hence includes these options among other offerings to cater to diversified interests. 

How to sell on Shein: Step-by-step guide

To learn about how to sell on Shein follow these steps:

First, apply to become a seller on Shein Marketplace

For every seller wondering how to sell on Shein, the Shein U.S Marketplace is your entry point. It includes a simple application process. We’ll show you how to apply to sell on Shein.

Start by heading over to https://seller-us.shein.com/get-started-shein-marketplace

Tap ‘Join marketplace’.

This will lead you to a page where you need to enter information regarding you and your business such as the main product category, the number of SKUs in your product catalog, the company’s annual revenue in the U.S., the primary sales channel, etc.

1. After you’re done, you’ll hear back from Shein about the confirmation within 7 days of application. Shein essentially uses this time to understand if your business complies with its global marketplace standards. On approval, Shein will send a dedicated onboarding setup to help you create your shop.

Second, obtain the products you want to sell

This step requires you to find a manufacturing unit. This is to produce clothing that fits within the ranges of affordability and also aligns with Shein’s product standards. Understanding and building a trend-forward inventory is a major part of how to be a seller on Shein as it will result in a faster inventory turnover. 

Imagine this. A seller may come across high demand for ruffled dresses that are trending on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram influenced by the release of a new album by a popular artist. She may be seen flaunting the same pattern in her video and so the craze for ruffled dresses took over. The seller, recognizing the demand, may come up with a collection of dresses and tops having similar styles and list them in their Shein store catalog.

He will thus benefit from the high demand and quick sales, increased visibility on Shein’s page due to its algorithm, resulting in a higher profit margin (as a fact!). This is how sellers can capitalize on seasonal trends and trigger sales.

To understand how to sell on Shein and be successful at it keep with more such ideas, keep a close vigil on Shein’s internal quality indicators, and refer to the bestseller products to meet the quality standards and make your store visible among others. 

Third, list your products

There are three ways to list your product catalog when you are wondering how to sell products on Shein. You can use a 3rd party API connection or 3rd party solution such as SellerApp’s Ecommerce Data API or refer to SHEIN Seller Hub. 

• The 3rd party API integration can help sellers connect their inventory systems to Shein’s platform enabling automated real-time inventory-related updates and mitigating chances of human error, allowing bulk uploads, CRM sync, etc. This is especially useful for large-scale sellers.

• 3rd party solution providers can offer third-party integrations with readily available tools to manage product catalogs without investing in an in-built API. CedCommerce Integration, ShipStation, and ChannelEngine are currently the best in the market which we encourage you to check out. It is typically helpful for sellers without a specialized tech team. Solution providers often come with round-the-clock tech support. If you’re a mid-sized business running on a budget bracket, this could be the ideal solution.

• The Shein Seller Hub is the designated platform of Shein that allows sellers to upload and manage their product catalogs. It is absolutely free of cost allowing manual uploads, in depth control over the customization of individual listings.

It’s important to note that each of the listings must include its category, product title, product description and attributes, product number, product images, quantity, dimensions, weight, and of course, the price.

Fourth, ship your orders

You can choose to ship your order via three methods: an In-house US Warehouse, a third-party Warehouse, or Shein Fulfillment services. But before you carry on with our guide on How to sell on Shein, let’s take a look at some of the major pros and cons of these choices, so that you choose better. 

1. In-house US warehouse

Shein reworked their entire logistics system in the US to keep up with the demand surge. They have set up warehouses in the U.S. (L.A., NJ, Indiana, and Seattle) to ensure fast delivery of in-stock items and to avoid possible delays that could take place for international shipping.

Pros: Complete autonomy over inventory and shipping.

Cons: Significant upfront investment for warehousing and workforce.

2. 3rd party warehouse

Sellers can also partner up with third-party warehouses to fulfill orders fast.

Pros: An easy way to gain from existing warehouse infrastructure and expertise.

Cons: Lack of control and Complex logistics.

3. Shein Fulfillment services

You can choose to let Shein handle the warehousing to shipping while you focus on excelling in new product development, manufacturing, and so on. 

Pros: You can bulk ship to Shein fulfillment centers and they take care of storage to shipping. 

Cons: Added charges for warehousing.

Note: Sellers on Shein can also practice multichannel selling.

What are Shein Marketplace fees?

There are certain fees associated with selling on Shein. While you’re on your journey to figure out how to sell on Shein, let us tell you what the fee structure looks like.  

Across all categories, sellers pay a 10% selling (referral) fee. There are no listing fees or advertising fees so stay assured selling on Shein is as easy as it is economical. There is a $1 penalty for not delivering an order within 7 days. 

What are the benefits of selling on Shein Marketplace?

Now that you know how to sell on Shein, let’s take a quick look at why Shein is a favorable entry point to the entrepreneurial journey. 

• A professional seller account costs $39.99 per month on Amazon whereas there is zero monthly fee for accounts on Shein.

• When it comes to fast fashion, Shein has an extensive reach so much so that it surpasses H&M and Zara in popularity. Shein is an excellent way of catering to a global customer base. 

• But how to sell things on Shein without paying a zero market fee? The initial 3 months on Shein will cost you a 0% market fee. However, upon completing 3 months the fees escalate to a fixed 10%.

• With Shein, there is a 0% promotion fee as the platform promotes sellers for free helping them target more customers.

Final thoughts

Effectively understanding how to sell on Shein can pave the way for any business to reach a global marketplace. Of course, to succeed, it goes beyond just proper listing practices, you need to bring trendy designs at affordable prices to the table. Shein will provide you with dynamic business models to showcase them. 

So, is it worth selling on Shein? Yes, indeed.

It promotes your shop for free of cost which encourages sellers with limited budgets to thrive in the competitive marketplace distributing equal opportunities for each entity to grow— which is a rare find for a seller. 

Although Shein has set its criteria pretty high in the yearly revenue mark, once you get through the world is within your reach. Follow the outlined steps to know how to become a shein seller to make your place among the most dynamic fashion ecosystem. 

It might include an uphill climb initially but keep going as the vast market and minimal cost is a fertile ground for your entrepreneurial seed to thrive. 

Additional Readings:

Launch a Wildly Profitable Ecommerce Business

15 E-commerce Marketing Strategy: Driving Growth in a Digital Marketplace

What Are The Latest Ecommerce Trends In That You Can’t-Miss

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