Fucking SHEIN

[Spudthespanner]

Every shopping result when I search for something on Google is bloody SHEIN. I’ve never shopped there in my puff!

“light summer shirts”

SHEIN SHEIN SHEIN SHEIN SHEIN plus a few other obviously bullshit Chinese companies just to spice things up a bit.

Fuck sake.

Between 10 - 100 times more carbon than a normal Google search depending on complexity.

But.. given how inaccurate and plagued by adverts Google is, I'd argue one search on chatgpt easially saves me 10 searches in Google so they're not that far apart!

The only victims of Shein, Temu etc is the likes of Next, H&M, Zara, Argos, your famous toy/appliance etc company. They lose out when customers are buying closer to the source online rather than forking out three or four times the price for the honour of having them stick their own logo on virtually the exact same China manufactured product.

Pointing out the issues with your choices =/= hateful.

I buy literally all my clothes apart from underwear and some footwear secondhand. Almost all from charity shops. No one needs a wide variety of acrylic shit in their wardrobe.

Charity shops or Vinted.

If you're seeing different sponsored results on Google, it’s often down to whether you accept cookies when visiting shopping sites or Google itself.

Google runs an ad exchange - a real-time auction where companies bid to show their ads. If you usually click 'accept' on cookie pop-ups and have lots of tracking data from visiting mainstream retailers, then Google can tell advertisers you're a more 'valuable' shopper. That means retailers are willing to pay more to show you ads, and you’ll likely see branded, premium results.

If you refuse cookies or use browser settings that block tracking, advertisers know less about you. In that case, you're more likely to see generic or bulk ads, which are cheaper for companies to place - so this tends to be the likes of Shein et al.

If you want to avoid all this crap, use DuckDuckGo or similar. It's perfectly fine. Why go to the effort of avoiding Shein and still supporting a search engine that enables them? For very specific things, I sometimes use ShopStyle - you can filter and set the budget

Fine if you can find the right size and sizing is actually accurate.

I was made redundant last year and will soon have to look for a job. I have no work clothes as I wore jeans, t shirts and trainers previously. I definitely don't have any interview clothes as I'd been there over 20 years! I'll be buying what no doubt some people will call 'acrylic shit' from Next as that's the most I can afford. I have no idea where is was made but needs must.

Charity shops are no longer competitively priced against Vinted... and the problem with Vinted, of course, is that you can't get a return if it arrives and doesn't fit or look right. It's easy to end up wasting a lot of money on a load of stuff from Vinted that you can't wear and you could have used it to get some fast fashion that you can at least return if need be.

I loathe fast fashion for all the usual reasons but I can absolutely understand why people buy it, and I don't think most of them are just after the last five minutes' microtrend. As with anything, it's expensive to be poor because you can't make the initial investment that saves you money long term. And it is harder than ever now to buy ethically because as PP have said, even the places that market themselves as better quality and price accordingly are often producing similar shite from similar factories with a huge mark up.

The Good On You website is a good place to start. It's hard, though.

What does it say about the UK that clothes, a necessity, have to be bought secondhand and it’s a mainstream thing?

Generally Chinese people wouldn’t dream of accepting second hand never mind paying

At 5ft 11 and size 20-22...the chances of me being able to find anything suitable in a charity shop are slim. And rhe charity shops around here are literally full of clothes my 89 year old grandma would have worn.

Vinted...yes, I buy from vinted a lot. But you take a risk that a) they're going to turn up b) that they're going to be in half decent condition and c) they're going to fit you or look ok. Also, once you've added on postage and fees, it quite often works out not very cheap. I bought some beautiful trousers in my normal size from vinted. They swamped me. I've tried selling them again, but no one is buying, so i wasted over a tenner on trousers that are now languishing in a box - and I still needed to go and buy trousers!

But you take a risk that a) they're going to turn up b) that they're going to be in half decent condition and c) they're going to fit you or look ok.

Whereas stuff bought sight unseen from China is famously always spot on in terms of quality and sizing

The maybe 10-15 things I've had from shein in the past five years....they've all turned up, they've all fitted bar one item snd they've all looked great....and have lasted. I'm still wearing shein clothes from 2021 and they're still absolutely fine.

The things I've bought from vinted - no guarantee.

Clothes I've bought from boohoo, next, m&s - sizes have been hit and miss, and one m&s item had a great big dirty footprint on, and then they 'lost' the return and I had a two month battle getting my money back. Boohoo leggings fell apart within about three wears.

Christ don't admit that on mumsnet you will be flamed

Lol i think more than just me shop on there but they would never say so.

I photographed these clothes factories on my walk in to work this morning. They are all owned by the same man and they supply to Shein via an intermediary, the manager told me that whenever a shop on this street becomes available he rents it and expands his capacity since demand is so high. Because we are China I should probably describe them as scruffy backstreet workshops, but of course if they were in Europe they would be artisanal micro factories.

I have just bought 6 tops from shein and I can't believe the quality.
They fit perfect size 18.
Last year a friend's daughter brought her wedding dress and bridesmaids dress from shein and they were lovely. As she said it's for one day why spend a fortune.

Yes the child labour is concerning but maybe the family rely on that income.
Everyone has to remember it's a different culture and not all families in Asia are well off.

Fucking hell can you hear yourself? Yes slavery is concerning but maybe the family rely on that income. Africa is a different culture and not everyone there is well off.

Yes the child labour is concerning but maybe the family rely on that income

Well, absolutely, we’ll gloss over the child labour and exploitation bit then! 🤡

Terrible about the child exploitation and all that. But the shirts were nice, yeah?

I get adverts from Shein and Temu despite never using them and rarely buying clothes online.

Me too.
It's depressing how much Shein appears.

I absolutely hate this, happens with me all the time only Temu. Search for something I'm after, something comes up exactly what I need and really cheap, I get excited and then see it's bloody Temu 😤

I gave into temptation once and signed up for one specific item, I instantly got bombarded with spinny wheels for amazing discounts, special offers unlocked, mystery prizes etc I ended up closing down the tab because I just couldn't be bothered.

I'll admit to shopping on Shein and Temu also wish 😊 I don't have the luxury of affording new clothes all the time most high street stores but from china they just put new tags on it and charge a higher price

I'm intrigued OP, where DO you shop in your PUFF?😂

Yep I’ve been looking for some nice summer dresses today and Shein keeps popping up. Never bought from there and never will. I volunteer at a baby bank and we get lots of donations of Shein, Temu type crap. The quality is awful.