"Chain Innovation" Breaks the Deadlock in Traditional Industry Transformation: SHEIN's New Digital and Intelligent Journey with Garment Factories
Text by Xuanting
In the standardized factory buildings of the International Fashion Textile and Apparel Industry Cluster in Panyu, Guangzhou, Chen Di gently swipes his finger on the screen of the digital production system. The real - time beating numbers show the order progress and the global sales data of a certain pleated dress.
Meanwhile, in a factory in Humen, Dongguan, customized garments with complex patterns are being output from the production line and will be delivered directly to consumers around the world in a few days.
Riding on the wave of the new form and model of "cross - border e - commerce" trade, under the dual tides of the global fashion industry reconstruction and the promotion of traditional industry upgrading in the "14th Five - Year Plan" suggestions in China, the textile and apparel industry, as a pillar industry in China, is enabling the above - mentioned factories from traditional Chinese clothing industry belts to undergo a profound transformation from "scale expansion" to "value leap".
Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that small, medium and micro enterprises account for as high as 99.8% in China's textile and apparel industry. These factories rooted in the industry belts have generally faced pain points such as low digitalization level, large order fluctuations, and difficulties in green transformation.
As a rapidly rising global third - largest fashion retailer and a leading cross - border e - commerce enterprise, SHEIN, in the role of the "chain leader", is injecting transformation momentum into traditional factories through technological innovation, model reconstruction and ecological co - construction.
Factories in different industry belts facing different difficulties are using their respective transformation stories to outline how to leverage industrial upgrading by collaborating with the "chain leader" enterprise.
The Digital Rebirth of a Thirty - Year - Old Factory
In 1994 in Guangzhou, the south - bound wave was filled with opportunities and uncertainties. Chen Di, who had just left his hometown, plunged into the clothing industry with a simple bag in hand.
Starting from sewing clothes stitch by stitch, he got familiar with all kinds of jobs such as cutting beds, pattern - making and design. In a blink of an eye, more than a decade had passed.
It wasn't until 2005 that Chen Di, having saved enough funds and gained sufficient experience, made up his mind to start his own business and boldly opened a clothing processing factory.
However, after three years of OEM work, the real - world pain points became more and more serious - the processing threshold was too low, the competition was fierce, and the profit margins were getting thinner and thinner.
He decided to find a new way out. He rented a stall in the clothing wholesale market near Guangzhou Railway Station, but he didn't follow the common practice. "After only a few months, I withdrew from the stall once I found compatible customers," said Chen Di. He was very shrewd. By saving the stall cost, he could focus on co - designing and developing products with customers. The products were then sold to various places by the customers, even overseas.
During that period, orders kept pouring in. The rumbling sound of the factory machines held his full - hearted hopes for his career.
The turning point came around 2010. The rise of online shopping was like a sudden storm that swept across the traditional wholesale market. Chen Di's customers failed to keep up with the trend, and their business declined sharply. The pressure soon spread to his factory, and he finally had to close it with a heavy heart.
In the following days, seeing his friends in the same industry who had transformed in time still busy with their work, Chen Di was anxious and panicked. During the COVID - 19 pandemic in 2020, he visited a friend's factory that supplied goods to SHEIN and found that it was completely different from the traditional factories, without the desolation and mess.
Chen Di decided to reopen his factory and officially became a supplier of SHEIN on June 6, 2021. "I can still clearly remember the day when we started our cooperation," he said.
At the beginning, the challenges exceeded expectations. Traditional factories were used to the "large - order, slow - response" model, while SHEIN's flexible "small - order, fast - response" model of "100 - 200 pieces for the first order" meant a wide variety of styles and fragmented orders. This made the workers who were used to single and repetitive labor uncomfortable in the first month.
Fortunately, SHEIN's empowerment team soon stationed in the factory to provide assistance. They taught the team how to operate step by step, from production scheduling, quality control to data analysis. In daily work, to solve the problem of switching between multiple styles, SHEIN provided special training and optimized personnel allocation through lean management. The full - process quality control system enabled the factory to quickly identify problems and make timely adjustments.
What really helped the factory gain a firm foothold was a pleated dress with complex craftsmanship.
It was a very difficult style. The tightness and flatness of the pleats had to be just right. Chen Di got involved himself and worked with the workers to overcome the technical difficulties. To his surprise, the dress quickly became popular in the overseas market, and each re - order was at least two or three thousand pieces. It is still a "evergreen style" in the factory, bringing continuous and generous returns.
After that, the problem of producing clothing with sequin fabric came up. The hard edges of the sequins could easily irritate the skin, affecting the wearing experience. Chen Di tried to roll and then edge - wrap the fabric, which solved the problem of skin irritation but halved the production efficiency.
Just when he was at a loss, the special tool developed by SHEIN's Clothing Manufacturing Innovation Research Center came to the rescue - it could combine the two edge - wrapping processes into one, not only increasing the production efficiency by 40% but also making the product quality more stable.
"It was only then that I realized that there is a corresponding solution for every difficult style, and the key is to find the right direction," said Chen Di. In his opinion, under SHEIN's flexible supply - chain model, through the data analysis in the background, he could know whether a product was popular among consumers. He only needed to ensure the subsequent production, "ensuring that we don't miss the opportunity to create a hit product due to out - of - stock situations. The lean tools continuously developed by SHEIN have become our powerful assistants in challenging complex styles."
Now, Chen Di's factory is no longer a small workshop. The factory building in Panyu has been continuously expanded, and the new factory building in Hubei has replicated the digital experience in Panyu. The total area has reached 9,000 square meters.
The factory director and technical management personnel in the Hubei factory were all carefully trained by him in Guangzhou and then transferred there. The two factories work together to calmly handle various order requirements.
"SHEIN's model has solved the three most troublesome problems I used to have," Chen Di counted on his fingers: the orders are stable. After delivering one order, the next one is already arranged in the background, so there is no need to go around asking for orders; the process is transparent. The production progress, quality status and sales data can be checked at any time; the payment cycle is stable. The payment is never delayed, and there is no need to worry about the capital turnover anymore.
SHEIN has brought not only orders and technology but also reshaped his business thinking. In the past, he received orders passively, but now he takes the initiative to innovate: "Through SHEIN's digital tool system, we can also see the consumer reviews of the products we produce. For the problems feedback by consumers, we will organize research within the company immediately and make improvements in the subsequent production."
This transformation from experience - driven to data - based decision - making was something that Chen Di didn't even dare to think about in the past. SHEIN's empowerment is enabling more entrepreneurs like Chen Di to regain their confidence in the digital wave and bring new vitality to old factories.
The "Green Breakthrough" of a Digital Printing Garment Factory
Drive southeast from Guangzhou for about an hour, cross the Humen Bridge, and you will enter the hot land of the fashion industry - Humen, Dongguan.
As the "Famous Town of Women's Clothing in China", the annual clothing sales here exceed 84.5 billion yuan, and it is home to more than 3,000 clothing enterprises and 200,000 practitioners.
Ten years ago, Sun He entered the clothing printing field here. From providing shoe - printing services for international second - tier brands in the early days, to gradually expanding fabric supply, and then to digital printing clothing production, he has always adjusted his business direction in line with the industry trend in the past ten years.
Currently, the printing and dyeing industry still mainly relies on traditional processes such as screen printing. However, these processes are limited by the plate - making process. They can only achieve simple patterns with 12 color sets, which is difficult to meet the complex design requirements in the fashion trend. Moreover, they have the pain points of high water consumption and high pollution.
The digital thermal transfer printing technology promoted by SHEIN has brought hope to the industry. Digital printing does not require plate - making, has no restrictions on color sets, and is environmentally friendly, flexible and efficient. Data from the China Printing and Dyeing Industry Association shows that the output of digital ink - jet printing of textiles in China has increased from 400 million meters in 2015 to 3.7 billion meters in 2023, with an average annual growth rate of 37.4%, and the market penetration rate has been continuously increasing.
Since the application of this technology in 2018, as of June 2024, more than 65% of the products in SHEIN's supply chain use digital thermal transfer printing technology, saving a total of 1.13 million tons of water, which is equivalent to 2.26 billion bottles of 500 - milliliter bottled water.
More importantly, this technology is deeply compatible with SHEIN's on - demand production flexible supply - chain model: on - demand production can flexibly adjust orders according to market trends, reducing waste from the source; digital thermal transfer printing can achieve small - batch and flexible - quantity printing production, perfectly meeting personalized needs.
"At that time, our traditional orders were gradually decreasing, but the customers we contacted had higher and higher requirements for order timeliness and more and more personalized needs," said Sun He, who keenly sensed the market change and firmly decided to transform. In January last year, he officially became an apparel supplier for SHEIN's full - width one - piece customization and women's clothing.
In the early stage of cooperation, Sun He's team had difficulty adapting to the fragmented "small - order, fast - response" orders. "Thanks to SHEIN's supporting order - following teaching and a series of empowerment trainings, our team quickly got familiar with the process and improved their skills," he said.
SHEIN has clear standards for the printing accuracy, color fastness and delivery timeliness of ready - made garments. Its empowerment team formulated a comprehensive improvement plan for Sun He: guiding him step by step from the raw material procurement standards to the optimization of the production process, from the quality inspection methods to the application of digital management tools.
The real test came during the Ramadan promotion in the Middle East not long after the cooperation started. As the re - orders of hit products kept pouring in, the daily output of the factory continued to rise. "The workshop was prone to chaos when it was busy. Without additional production capacity and no one specifically monitoring the whole process, the risks of sub - standard quality and delayed delivery followed one after another," Sun He recalled.
After the SHEIN team detected the abnormality through data monitoring, they immediately intervened to provide guidance. They not only provided monthly self - operation and inventory management training but also taught the team how to conduct inventory checks and prepare goods accurately step by step.
Empowered by SHEIN, Sun He quickly adjusted his strategy: on the one hand, he expanded the team size. Relying on SHEIN's clear job standards and specialized talent training system, new employees could quickly get started, solving the production capacity gap; on the other hand, he specifically added an operation position to analyze the data of hot - selling products and give early warnings of out - of - stock situations, and fed the data back to the production link, forming a closed - loop of "data - production - optimization".
Today, hundreds and thousands of Sun Hes are painting a picture of the upgrading of the traditional clothing industry in Humen. Driven by SHEIN, this "Famous Town of Women's Clothing in China" is transforming from "processing with supplied materials" to "defining fashion trends", and bringing new vitality to the traditional industry belt through the application of digital and green technologies.
The Flexible Leap from Food Delivery Workwear to Global Outdoor Hit Products
In a sports and outdoor clothing factory in Suzhou, Jiangsu, workers are rushing to produce a batch of mountaineering suits for overseas markets.
Who would have thought that this factory, which is now exploring the "small - order, fast - response" model, was the core supplier of workwear for domestic food delivery platforms a few years ago, setting a record of delivering 600,000 - 700,000 pieces of workwear in two months at its peak.
When the factory was established in 2003, Yao Yuan mainly engaged in foreign trade orders for outdoor clothing. Although the unit price was high, the off - peak and peak seasons were obvious. It wasn't until 2016 that he keenly caught the wave of the booming food delivery industry and quickly transformed into producing food delivery workwear.
In order to win orders, he developed a very strong supply - chain system: it could not only handle a large number of orders but also established a single - piece direct - mail service and a dedicated online after - sales team. He even led the team to the delivery rider stations for research and improved details such as the firmness of the straps based on the riders' feedback.
However, as the cooperation deepened, the drawbacks of the "big - factory thinking" gradually emerged. "The biggest pain points were the payment cycle and inventory," Yao Yuan admitted. The payment cycle of the cooperative customers was extended from three months to six months, putting great pressure on the capital. What was even more troublesome was the inventory problem. "Some brands kept returning goods even after half a year of sales," and the previous profits were all eaten up by the labor and rent costs of the overstocked inventory, and there was even a risk of losing money.
Meanwhile, the market demand was also changing subtly. Workwear was no longer just simple breathable sports styles; it began to evolve into multi - functional equipment with an urban functional style that could handle bad weather. There was even a demand for IP - co - branded limited - edition products with only 200 - 300 pieces per order. "The team, which was used to producing hundreds of thousands of pieces at a time, was reluctant to take such small orders at first," Yao Yuan recalled.
Just then, he heard about SHEIN's "small - order, fast - response" model from his customers. This made him realize that consumer demand was shifting towards diversification and extreme cost - effectiveness, and the traditional "large - scale, long - cycle" production would surely be replaced by "fragmented, fast - response" production.
"I think the small - order, fast - response model will become the mainstream, as it can reduce inventory pressure and meet the diverse market needs," based on this judgment, Yao Yuan decided to actively contact SHEIN to seek cooperation.
In 2023, Yao Yuan officially started cooperation with SHEIN. Although he saw the advantages of SHEIN, such as timely payment, no inventory pressure and stable orders, it was inevitable that he would have some difficulties in adapting to the new model in the early stage of transformation.
The biggest challenge came from the conflict between aesthetic differences and production logic. "We were used to producing domestic workwear and didn't understand the aesthetics of overseas consumers. It was difficult to get our designs selected by the buyers using the old methods," said Yao Yuan. To solve this problem, he led his team to travel back and forth to Guangzhou frequently, participated in SHEIN's targeted training, and actively contacted the buyers. Under the guidance of SHEIN's buyers, they learned how to target the right customer group, break down the product positioning, and develop functional and scene - based styles according to the seasons.
The real "operation" took place on the production line. SHEIN's logic of "testing with small orders first to reduce waste" was completely different from Yao Yuan's habitual "large - scale replication" model. Yao Yuan made up his mind to make a major change to the production line: he directly split the original large assembly line with 30 workers into small assembly lines with less than 10 workers.
This change forced the workers to step out of their comfort zones and transform from skilled workers used to single processes into all - rounders capable of multi - process operations. To relieve the initial production capacity pressure, Yao Yuan expanded new production capacity and introduced SHEIN's empowerment team for "online + offline" training to ensure that the workers mastered the production specifications for different styles.
After the painful period of transformation, the rewards were obvious. Yao Yuan found that the growth brought