Shein Goes Physical in France | Fast Five Shorts
This segment from the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five podcast, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Quorso, covers Shein's first permanent move into physical retail with shop-in-shops across French department stores.
Chris rates this move a 6.5 out of 10, praising Shein's ability to test demand in physical locations while leveraging their fast-fashion manufacturing prowess. Anne sees additional benefits: attracting aspirational shoppers to luxury department stores, gathering in-person shopping data, and potentially addressing sustainability concerns through in-store returns and recycling. Is this the blueprint for digital-first brands entering physical retail?
For the full episode head here!
#shein #fastfashion #physicalretail #shopinshop #omnichannel #fashionretail #retailexpansion #departmentstores #retailstrategy #fashioninnovation
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Transcript
Shein is making its first permanent move into physical retail.
Speaker A:According to Chain Storage, the Asian online fast fashion giant will pilot six shop and shops across France, starting at BHV Marais in Paris, followed by five more to be open in Galleries Lafayette stores.
Speaker A:Reported by fashion network.com in the opening of the shops, Sheehan has teamed up with Society de Grand magazine.
Speaker A:I'm.
Speaker A:This is awful.
Speaker A:I cannot, I'm sorry, every French person listening.
Speaker B:Yeah, for those listening, I purposely put this headline number five instead of number four so Anne would have to read it.
Speaker A:Oh my gosh.
Speaker A:It's just, I mean, cover your ears, people.
Speaker A:Anyway, the retail property company that operates BHV Murray and several Galleries Lafayette stores following sale and affiliation agreements with the Galleries Lafayette group, the report said.
Speaker A:Chris, this is also going to be our A and M put you on the spot.
Speaker A:And hopefully they are not French speakers and putting any more French words into this headline.
Speaker B:Actually more I could have put in here than I did.
Speaker B:And actually.
Speaker A:Oh, I know there were a lot of them in there.
Speaker A:There were a lot of them in there when this headline came across.
Speaker A:All right, Chris, A and M wants to know, in the age of digital first shopping, what will it take for Sheehan and other retailers looking to follow suit to reimagine brick and mortar as a strategic extension of fast fashion and consumer.
Speaker A:Consumer immediacy?
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker A:Go ahead.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's a really interesting question.
Speaker B:It's a different angle than I expected to take on it.
Speaker B:You know, I, I actually, I like this move from Sheehan and I think, you know, on a scale of one to ten, I think I'd probably put it at six and a half.
Speaker B:I think this, I think the headline's a little misleading because it's saying they're opening up a bricks and mortar operation permanently, which, based on what I'm reading in the tea leaves, it sounds like they're just, you know, being placed inside a department store more.
Speaker B:So would you agree?
Speaker B:Like a shop and shop inside a traditional department store.
Speaker A:So it's probably is very.
Speaker A:Yeah, very common in France.
Speaker A:I mean, there is lots of shop and shops from, you know, boutiques for fragrance to independent designers.
Speaker A:Like that's a very common thing where you would have a permanent setup in all these French department stores.
Speaker A:So, yes, that makes complete sense.
Speaker A:But I wouldn't call it a pop up necessarily or like temporary at all.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, it sounds like it's a permanent.
Speaker B:I mean, their emphasis was on it's a permanent location.
Speaker B:Now.
Speaker B:That was the key thing.
Speaker B:So like the you know, so, but the point I don't know is like, is it a wholesale relationship with the department store or is it like they're buying the inventory and running the shop in shop, so to speak.
Speaker B:So here's the thing, here's the thing.
Speaker B:I don't think it actually matters.
Speaker B:And so that's what I like about this is it's showing.
Speaker B:Sheen is saying, look, we've got this really unique capability with our technology and our manufacturing infrastructure to understand potentially better than other people what items people are going to want for the upcoming season.
Speaker B:And then we're going to take a position on them, either with you via wholesale or on our own via the shop and shop to understand how much value we can extract from the marketplace.
Speaker B:I think that's the lesson here to be learned that is really intriguing to me and that's, I think what inherently gets at A&M's question is there's a lot to, there's a lot to think about within this headline.
Speaker B:And I think that's really important when you think about, okay, what does she inhabit its disposal, what is it doing and where can it go?
Speaker B:And so that's my take here.
Speaker A:I think this is a brilliant idea for more reasons than that.
Speaker A:I mean, I think it gets you traffic.
Speaker A:I mean there's a certain customer that can go into these French department stores and when your, your other galleries or your other Shopp shops like I was talking about earlier are Ceson or Louve or Diptyque, like that's a high price point.
Speaker A:I think what you're able to do now is you're getting those aspirational shoppers in there with Shein and you're giving them something that they can take away from this very luxurious, high end shopping experience that's not going to break the bank.
Speaker A:I mean we started to see this when you and I were in Paris a couple years ago and they started bringing resale into some of these stores and like Samaritan had like a whole area of resale on one of the floors so that you could start to get people starting to enjoy some of these products and that shopping experience and then maybe coming in for like a gifting thing or for the holidays and shopping at the other stores that are available.
Speaker A:But I think this is a brilliant thing.
Speaker A:It gives she and so much more data about how shoppers and where their shoppers are shopping in person in physical retail.
Speaker A:And not to mention there is also the sustainability angle of this, Chris.
Speaker A:And I think that this could be an interesting play that they didn't really touch on in the article, but she is under so much, well, she is under so much pressure for the textiles waste that they're putting out into the world because of their rapid manufacturing.
Speaker A:If people get the products at home, it's not easy to exchange that or not worth the money to exchange it.
Speaker A:So they just end up becoming waste.
Speaker A:And so I'm curious to see that if they have these shop and shops, will they start to see people coming in for a scenario where they might be able to bring in their Shein product that they didn't like or, or was the wrong size or didn't fit as they expected and then that could be recycled and they get a credit to shop the Shein in the store or something like that.
Speaker A:Like, I still think that France especially is going to be very tight on Sheehan and watching the waste that they, they put out from being in physical retail there.
Speaker A:So I think that could be an interesting play for them too to start to test and see like what kinds of things we do in store that reduce our sustainability footprint.
Speaker A:So that's another thing.
Speaker B:You had me up until sustainability.
Speaker B:I think putting fast fashion into more stores and more units through that fast fashion process has me a little skeptical of that argument.
Speaker B:But I 100% agree with everything you said up until that point.
