Fast fashion retailer Shein's UK sales surged to $2.8 billion in 2024
Shein does not report global results publicly, but the filing sheds light on its growth in Britain, its third-biggest market after the United States and Germany, as the company works toward an initial public offering in Hong Kong.
Founded in China and headquartered in Singapore, Shein has spent years attempting to list, first in New York and then in London, but faced criticism from U.S. and UK politicians and failed to get approval from China's securities regulator for the offshore IPO at a time of increasing tensions between China and the U.S.
The global retailer's UK business, Shein Distribution UK Ltd, reported a pretax profit of 38.25 million pounds in 2024, up 56.6% from 24.4 million pounds in 2023.
In the filing, Shein highlighted 2024 milestones, such as a pop-up shop in Liverpool, a Christmas bus tour across 12 UK cities and the opening of two new offices in Kings Cross and Manchester.
Known for deeply discounted prices, Shein runs constant promotions and offers coupons or rewards that encourage shoppers to keep buying. Shein has taken market share from retailers like ASOS (ASOS.L), opens new tab and H&M (HMb.ST), opens new tab as surging inflation dented consumers' spending power, driving them to hunt for bargains.
Shein has also broadened its offering beyond fashion — the UK site sells 7.99-pound ($10.84) dresses and 15-pound ($20.36) jeans, as well as everything from toys and craft supplies to storage units.
Shein's business has benefited from customs duty exemptions on low-value e-commerce packages that allow it to send goods directly from factories in China to shoppers' doorsteps largely tariff-free.
But that perk is on its way out, driving Shein's costs — and prices — up, particularly in the U.S., where imports from China are now subject to steep tariffs.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has scrapped its "de minimis" exemption for parcels under $800, and the European Union plans to remove its equivalent duty waiver on e-commerce parcels worth less than 150 euros.
Britain is also reviewing its policy on low-value imports after retailers said it was giving online players like Shein and Temu an unfair advantage.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
2 hours ago
- The Sun
Millions on benefits and Universal Credit to get EXTRA payment before the end of the year – are you eligible?
MILLIONS on benefits and Universal Credit will get extra payment before the end of the year. The free cash, often referred to as the benefits Christmas bonus, is paid to eligible households to help provide extra financial support over the holiday period. 1 The bonus was first introduced in 1972 and hasn't risen in value since then. If the payment had risen in line with inflation it would now be worth £118.69, which would be enough to cover the cost of a Christmas shop for the family. However, £10 these days doesn't stretch very far, and would likely only cover the cost of a few items in a grocery store. Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the figure has fallen so far behind inflation that it's "now the kind of sum that the kids of better off families might find tucked into a Christmas card". "If you're facing Christmas on a tight budget, the earlier you can start preparing for it, the better." She added: "Some people will buy presents throughout the year, whereas others will put something aside each month into an easy access savings account." "It's not always easy to free up the cash, but you'll be glad you managed it when you're faced with the eye-watering cost of Christmas." Meanwhile, Evan John, Policy Advisor at the national disability charity Sense, said the bonus is "another example of successive governments demonstrating they don't really understand the huge extra costs of being disabled". He added: "The cost of living has spiralled for disabled people over recent years. "Many have no choice but to use extra energy to power feeding machines or hoists - and energy costs have risen in recent years, alongside the ever-increasing prices of specialist foods and therapies." Cost of Living payment updates — Thousands have just days to claim free £300 DWP cash A Government spokesperson said: "This Government is determined to change people's lives for the better, helping them out of poverty so they do not need to rely on crisis support. 'That's why we are fixing the broken welfare system we inherited, so it genuinely supports those who can work into employment while ensuring there is always a safety net for the most vulnerable. 'We have also raised the national living wage, increased benefits, and given additional help to the poorest households as part of our Plan for Change.' How do I claim the DWP Christmas bonus? Anyone who is eligible to claim the bonus does not need to apply and will be paid automatically. If you are not sure if you have received the payment before, check on your bank statements for a code which says "DWP XB". To get the money you usually need to be claiming benefits before the qualifying week, which is typically the first week of December. The full list of benefits which make you eligible for the bonus include: Adult Disability Payment Armed Forces Independence Payment Attendance Allowance Carer's Allowance Carer Support Payment Child Disability Payment Constant Attendance Allowance (paid under Industrial Injuries or War Pensions schemes) Contribution-based Employment and Support Allowance (once the main phase of the benefit is entered after the first 13 weeks of claim) Disability Living Allowance Incapacity Benefit at the long-term rate Industrial Death Benefit (for widows or widowers) Mobility Supplement Pension Age Disability Payment Pension Credit - the guarantee element Personal Independence Payment (PIP) Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance (SADLA) Severe Disablement Allowance (transitionally protected) State Pension (including Graduated Retirement Benefit) Unemployability Supplement or Allowance (paid under Industrial Injuries or War Pensions schemes) War Disablement Pension at State Pension age War Widow's Pension Widowed Mother's Allowance Widowed Parent's Allowance Widow's Pension If you think that you qualify but don't receive the payment automatically you should contact your local Jobcentre Plus or Pension Centre. Support if you are struggling If you are struggling there are ways to get financial support. For example, cash-strapped families can get access to money through the Household Support Fund (HSF). The scheme has been extended multiple times with the latest round running between April 2025 and March 2026. Each council in England has been allocated a share of the £742million fund and can distribute it to residents in need. Eligibility criteria varies based on where you live but usually help is offered to those on benefits or a low income. For example, households in . Elsewhere, households in Wealden District Council cash worth £200.
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
China plots robotaxi invasion of Britain
The Chinese robotaxis are coming. After taking over the streets of Beijing, self-driving vehicles are now poised to pour on to Britain's roads as soon as next year. Leading the charge is Baidu, a tech giant known as ' China's Google '. In a direct challenge to Elon Musk's Tesla, which has already started testing its full self-driving technology in the UK, Baidu has vowed to roll out thousands of cars across Europe. To do so, Baidu has partnered its Apollo Go taxi business with Lyft – one of Uber's main rivals – which plans to launch a self-driving taxi service in the UK in 2026. The Beijing-based tech giant has set its sights on Britain after being effectively locked out of America, where Chinese driverless software is to be banned from 2027. As a result, the expected flood of Chinese robotaxis risks putting Britain on a fresh collision course with the White House, although the potential for a geopolitical spat has far from halted interest from the Far East. In China, robotaxis are no longer a high-tech novelty. Companies including Baidu, WeRide, AutoX and all now offer self-driving shuttles that ferry passengers around without a driver. Encouraged by their success at home, they are targeting expansion in Europe. which is valued at $5bn (£3.7bn), has said it will begin trialling its service in Luxembourg, while WeRide has tested driverless buses in France and Spain. The start-ups, both of which are based in Guangzhou, have joined their Chinese peers in racing to tighten their grip on the global robotaxi market as adoption stutters across America. After making initial headway in the self-driving market, momentum among Silicon Valley giants has since tailed off. Uber notably abandoned its first effort to build an autonomous taxi in 2020 after a fatal crash, while Musk's long-standing promise to unleash an army of self-driving Teslas has so far been limited to Texas. Cruise, one of the most established robotaxi ventures, was shut down last year by its parent company GM, after an accident involving a woman who was dragged under the car's wheels. China's industry, on the other hand, appears to have moved up a gear. 'China's top players are pushing hard into overseas markets, potentially gaining a foothold before US rivals can fully scale', says Murtuza Ali, a technology analyst at Counterpoint Research. While Waymo, the US market leader, is offering paid robotaxi rides in Phoenix, Arizona; San Francisco and Los Angeles in California; and in Austin, Texas, China is already operating robotaxis across 30 Chinese cities. Baidu's service is also live in 15 cities, while dozens more companies are launching pilot programmes. Stan Boland, former chief executive of UK autonomous driving business Five AI, says: 'There is a propensity in China to take more risks in terms of automated driving. 'There has been a much higher level of caution here in Europe when it comes to regulatory approvals.' In the UK, new rules brought in under Labour mean self-driving taxi and bus pilots could be live on UK roads from 2026. The first is expected to be Uber's trial with Wayve, a UK AI business that has raised more than $1bn. US-based Lyft is also preparing to test driverless cars across the UK following its deal with Baidu. Next up could be WeRide, which recently held talks with the UK's South China trade envoy, Trevor Lewis, about introducing autonomous vehicles in the UK. A WeRide spokesman says: 'The UK is set to be an important part of WeRide's international growth. WeRide looks forward to potential collaborations that support the UK's smart mobility ecosystem.' Concerns about expansion However, the rapid expansion of China's self-driving car industry will no doubt raise scrutiny regarding its safety record. Just last week, a vehicle operated by Baidu in the city of Chongqing fell into a roadside construction pit, flipping the vehicle on to its side. A woman escaped from the car unharmed. Elsewhere, a car developed by tech giant Xiaomi was also involved in a crash in March that killed three people. The vehicle smashed into a cement pole at 97mph while operating in a driver-assist mode, rather than driving entirely independently. The crash prompted Chinese officials to crack down on marketing claims about self-driving capabilities from the country's carmakers. As well as safety fears, the influx of Chinese robotaxis is also expected to trigger geopolitical scrutiny. The US department of commerce warned in January that China's self-driving cars left 'opportunities for data exfiltration and unauthorised vehicle manipulation ', backing up its decision to ban the technology. Similar concerns are now emerging in Britain. China hawks fear the arrival of self-driving vehicles from the Far East will create risks akin to Huawei, the telecoms company barred from UK networks over national security concerns. Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative Party leader, warned China's vehicles 'will further enhance the control they have on the UK', adding they would be 'filled with internet of things' technology – sensors that can be used for surveillance. Luke de Pulford, director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, adds: 'Unless the UK wakes up soon, it will find itself having to foot a huge bill for removing high-risk equipment, like they had to over Huawei.' Yet despite such concerns, it appears that China's robotaxi experiment in Britain is only picking up pace.
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘People have a right to be happy': the former Waitrose boss on how the UK can boost productivity
Is being happy at work the key to the UK government's goal of boosting productivity and economic growth? The former Waitrose boss turned big company adviser Mark Price certainly thinks so. Solving widespread worker unhappiness would be good for the UK's army of workers and getting people back into the workforce, as well as being the answer to many of Britain's economic woes, he says. Since leaving a decades-long career in retail, followed by a stint in government as trade minister, Lord Price – known during his days running the supermarket chain as the 'Chubby Grocer' – has embarked on a mission to make organisations recognise the value of a happy workforce, while empowering employees to gain more satisfaction from their toil. 'If people are happy in their jobs they don't leave, you retain knowledge, you have lower levels of sick absence, all of which leads to more profitable and more effective organisations. And it's good for individuals,' says Price. He has the data to back this up, thanks to the 1.5 million workers globally, half of whom are in the UK, who have completed the How Happy Are You at Work? survey run by Price's organisation WorkL. Britons are, on average, the unhappiest workers in the G20 group of nations, a fact he believes has a direct link with the economy's productivity problem, where the UK also has the unhappy position as bottom of the G20. One of the aims of the Labour government is to get more people back to work – which has been a pervasive problem in Britain since the pandemic, far more than in its European neighbours – and which ministers believe is the best way of cutting the benefits bill. Reeling off a list, Price says: 'All our research shows that if you are happy in your job, you work harder, you're more productive, you'll give extra discretionary effort, you're more likely to be paid more highly than your unhappy colleagues, you're more likely to be promoted, your mental health will be better and your wellbeing in general will be better.' WorkL – the L doesn't stand for anything, Price says, although some presume the name stands for 'work-life' – is paid to advise large employers including the retailer Next, the restaurant chains Burger King and Wagamama, as well as many of the UK's universities, who tend to score poorly for employee satisfaction. The organisation was also called in to advise the Scottish brewer and bar chain BrewDog during the tenure of the previous chief executive, James Watt, following accusations by former workers that Watt presided over a 'culture of fear'. Price's focus on happiness will resonate at a time of continual tussles between employers and their staff in the post-pandemic world of work. Many workers have come to expect a certain degree of flexibility in where and when they fulfil their duties. There have, however, been warnings that such flexibility is not offered to nurses, transport and retail workers among others, dividing Britain into a two-tier workforce. Price is calling for a contract between all kinds of employees and their employers, a 'work happiness charter' which he outlines in his latest book, Work Happier, to be published next month. He believes that recent decades have brought great strides in workplace safety and in legal rights for employees, without telling them 'how work should feel'. The burden has traditionally been placed on employers to improve treatment of their teams, or to offer them training to allow them to advance. Price believes that people have a 'right to be happy at work', along with other rights including fair pay, to be equipped with the tools to carry out the job, but also to be 'well informed', 'treated with respect' and 'given the opportunity to show your ability'. In return, he says employees have responsibilities and should commit to give their best effort, to be punctual and positive, take responsibility and keep the best interests of their organisation in mind. Such a mutual undertaking would allow workers to figure out whether they can improve their current position, advance through training, or whether they should consider moving roles within an organisation or even look for a new job elsewhere, even in a different sector. Just under a third of respondents to WorkL's survey are 'very unhappy', Price says, which can harm workers' mental health and damage relationships with their friends and family, who have to listen to their complaints. The research has also found that sectors such as technology tend to have happier workers, while defence scores bottom; the retail and hospitality sectors also tend to have staff who are less content. Price traces his interest in workplace happiness back to his 34 years at the John Lewis Partnership, the owner of John Lewis department stores and the Waitrose supermarket chain, where he rose from graduate trainee to deputy chair. John Spedan Lewis established the co-owned business in 1929, when he decided to transfer all the shares in the family business he had inherited into a trust. Price says he was told on his very first day that, rather than commercial considerations, the partnership's 'supreme purpose … was the happiness of its workers'. More than a decade after leaving, he still does not have a bad word to say about a business he describes as 'magical' and 'very forward-looking', although he concedes it 'may have made a few mis-steps' in recent years. Indeed, the retailer has had a tricky few years since the pandemic, and it has not paid a bonus to its staff for three of the past four years. Meanwhile, hourly pay rates at Waitrose are below most of its main supermarket rivals, as well as the discounters Aldi and Lidl. Pay, according to WorkL's data, is not the main motivator for most employees, with workers reporting they 'want to feel that they're being paid fairly for the job that they're doing'. This holds true for jobs across all sectors, even lower-paid or lower-skilled roles. 'People want to feel valued,' Price says. 'It's not a pay issue. It's about how you are being treated in the workplace, the value that you feel you are getting from that, and how your employer is developing you.' Since the pandemic, surveys have shown that work-life balance now ranks more highly than pay for many employees. Despite the string of return-to-office mandates from large employers in recent months, Price says WorkL's data shows that hybrid working does not have a positive or negative effect on productivity, but being able to work in a hybrid way makes most employees happier. 'All our data clearly points to the fact that the people who are happiest have that blend of some time in the office, doing office things and connecting, and some time at home.' Price, a Conservative peer, believes that the Labour government's employment rights bill, expected to become law in the autumn, 'misses the really big point, it should be about how people feel at work'. This, he says, would also help it with its goals of cutting the welfare bill and encouraging people back into the workforce. 'Work is a noble thing. You're helping yourself, you're helping your family, you're helping society … Working is good and I think we have lost sight of that,' he says.
