A Shein warehouse worker in southern China, wearing black-rimmed glasses, tells the camera in a video posted to the Chinese social media platform Bilibili in October that he picked 650 clothing items during his most recent shift—a feat he attributes, in part, to not taking a single bathroom break.
The laborer claims that by making this sacrifice, he will be able to fulfill his monthly target of 10,000 RMB (about $1,500 at the time) from his work picking and packing customer orders for Shein, the $66 billion global fast-fashion giant.
A different Shein employee claims to be “sweating profusely after picking goods all night” in a another Bilibili film that was uploaded a few days later. Despite this, he is at least appreciative of his team leader’s friendliness. Another Shein employee, her long hair pulled back into a low ponytail, tells the camera in a third footage posted to the short-form video site Kuaishou in November that she is having problems lifting her left hand after finishing an 11-and-a-half-hour shift at a Shein warehouse. The caption says, “This is my first time working in logistics, and it won’t be my last.”
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These kinds of day-in-the-life vlogs have been shot over the past three years in Shein fulfillment facilities in southern China by scores of alleged gig workers who have shared with viewers substantial information about their pay, working conditions, and motivations for accepting jobs in the logistics sector.
WIRED examined over thirty films from four Chinese platforms that were hashtagged with Xiyin (#希音), which is Shein’s Chinese name. Together, they offer a unique and incredibly personal window into the painstakingly designed logistical supply chain that enables Shein to ship millions of pairs of $5 patterned leggings and $3 polyester tube tops to customers all over the world. (WIRED made an effort to get in touch with the employees in the videos for comments; some were unreachable, and the others declined requests for interviews.)
Shein distributes the majority of its orders straight from China, a move that critics in the US and Europe argue enables it to unjustly avoid import charges. Amazon, on the other hand, typically locates its fulfillment facilities close to important customer hubs in order to maximize delivery times. (Shein claims that it pays millions in taxes annually.) However, testimony from workers in the videos—which WIRED verified with local job listings, news articles written in Chinese, and other publicly accessible data—reveals that Shein also reaps significant benefits from running warehouses in China, including the capacity to staff them with insecure gig workers who aren’t legally entitled to the same protections and benefits as full-time employees.
According to job postings for Shein logistics positions that WIRED saw in Guangdong province, a contentious practice known as “labor dispatch” is used to hire a large number of workers for the company’s fulfillment centers. Thanks to this arrangement, businesses can delegate responsibility for groups of temporary workers to staffing companies, who manage the employees’ pay, benefits, and other working conditions.
Lu Zhang, an associate professor at Temple University who has researched China’s labor dispatch model and authored a book about worker organizing in China’s car industry, says, “That separates the employment relationship from the actual use of labor.” “It lowers costs and enables businesses to achieve labor on demand.”
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