The decline of Boohoo, the fast fashion empire

Louise Déglise-Favre, associate retail analyst at GlobalData, agrees that where Boohoo is concerned, “there’s a transfer of power, really, more than a full-on slowing down of the fast fashion industry.” Much of this is the sheer manpower China has, with Déglise-Favre citing its “manufacturing capabilities and the turnaround speed” as key tools in Shein’s arsenal. 

Cheap labour costs also help drive prices down; the company uploads 6,000 new garments daily to its website. Add to that celebrity endorsements from the likes of Katy Perry and Rita Ora, who appeared at its 2021 Covid fundraiser, and Khloe Kardashian, and the juggernaut is only growing. 

“They’re really good at leveraging social media in a way that other players like Boohoo or even Asos haven’t really done,” Déglise-Favre says. “They’ve really managed to corner TikTok.” This social media power, combined with search engine optimisation that sees them (or Temu) ranked top every time you write a product name into Google, only further cements their ubiquity. “They have such hyper-visibility that it’s almost impossible to avoid them,” Venetia Falconer, a fair fashion campaigner, says. 

While the Gen Zs targeted by Boohoo, Shein and copycat sites like Cider are vocal about the future of the planet – to which fast fashion is harmful – and workers’ rights, marketing clout often wins out. “The fashion system is functioning exactly as it’s supposed to. It’s built in this way for brands to race to the bottom,” Falconer says. Quality is immaterial now that a one-and-done attitude to wearing clothes has set in. 

Dr Patsy Perry, reader in Fashion Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University’s Manchester Fashion Institute, says that shifting attitudes towards the longevity of our clothes can be disastrous for retailers, too. “It is the perennial problem of returns, where even when things are quite cheap and low-cost, consumers are getting quite adept at using it as a hiring service, and over-ordering, [and] returning a lot of it.” While the circular economy also appears to be growing – Vinted, a clothes resale platform, was the second most popular shopping app in the UK last year – fast-fashion is “often not fit to be resold.”

Few are optimistic about how things might improve. “Retail has changed so much since I was involved in it,” says Jane Shepherdson, previously CEO at Whistles and brand director at Topshop. “I can’t say I am surprised that [Boohoo] are losing out to Shein, if you only offer low prices someone will always undercut you.”

The family dividends may look less rosy given Boohoo’s current state, but there is still big money to be made by those who get their strategy right, Thomas adds. She describes Shein as “the McDonald’s of ultra-fast fashion; they’re just going to own and crush everyone else… you’ll have Boohoos come and go, but they will come and they will go.”