The average age of Shein's customer is 35 years old

The strengths that have led Shein to become one of the most appreciated brands at the moment are the low prices and the virtually infinite choice of products to buy, ranging from evening dresses to swimwear covering every option in between. Now, Shein's business model is very efficient and profitable but also very polluting - so much so that the company's emissions and the entire fast fashion system are often attributed to the wild consumerism of Gen Z. But it's not quite like that: according to a UBS Securities research, the average Shein customer is female, with an average age of 35, and her annual salary is around $65,000. Additionally, she spends about $100 a month on women's clothing, a figure that exceeds the average spending of the country's population by 60%. Furthermore, those who usually buy Shein items spend more time shopping than female Americans do, both online and in-store. So, the blame lies with the Millennials, not Gen Z, who finance Shein's huge earnings with their own money: according to the Wall Street Journal, the brand closed 2023 with a whopping $23 billion in revenue, a figure that piqued the interest of the Chinese joint venture of UBS investment bank to carefully investigate the habits of its consumers.

UBS Securities, as also reported by Business Insider, to gather this data analyzed the habits of 684 customers: 30% of them claimed to prefer shopping on Shein because they consider the aesthetics of the garments more important than comfort and sustainability. The same 30% added that the stores they prefer to shop at, in addition to Shein itself, are Amazon, Walmart, Target, and T.J. Maxx. Paradoxically, data collected by UBS Securities indicate that those who usually shop at Shein differ from the average American shopper in being more sensitive to sustainability issues: 42% of clothing consumers in the United States do not consider environmental, social, and ethical issues at the time of purchase. Nevertheless, data collected by UBS Securities cannot divert attention from the recent unfortunate events that have severely damaged Shein's reputation, from violating minimum wages within factories located in Guangzhou and other areas of China to the illegal disposal of millions of unsold garments in the Chilean desert. The investment bank concluded the research by reporting new data that suggests Shein's success will not stop, especially in the short term: in the United States, it is the most searched brand on Google and has more followers on TikTok than any other clothing brand.