2023-12-05 08:59:57
Tuesday, December 5, 2023, 00:17 | Updated 07:59h.
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He became a giant from nothing, he is a magnate in the fashion industry, he manages a fortune of many zeros, he is barely seen and does not grant interviews. This brief overview is from Amancio Ortega, the owner of Inditex. But he would be a perfect fit for the Chinese version of him, the one played by Sky Xu. He is the founder of Shein, the brand that dominates the world of online fast fashion, tremendously popular among the youth audience.
Xu is preparing the jump to the US stock market of the company, whose value is around 90,000 million dollars (82,000 million euros), although in a fundraising round carried out in April of last year it was ‘valued’ at almost 100,000 million .
Technology companies – Shein is to a large extent – have suffered a depreciation in recent times, although investment banks and funds – such as the sovereign of Abu Dhabi (Mubadala) or the venture capital Sequoia China – are betting on it everything to the Chinese giant.
This business milestone will further line the pockets of Xu, who has an estimated net worth of around €10.2 billion. It will not be easy to know how Xu, an enigmatic guy who could go unnoticed in Shein’s own offices, and owner of a biography full of shadows that is difficult to illuminate, will use that money. It is known that he lives in Singapore, that he does not speak English and that he likes to play golf in the company of other Chinese businessmen. And not much else.
To begin with, his real name is Xy Yangtian, although outside of China he began to be known as Chris Xu. And for two years he has been Sky Xu. No one is able to guarantee one hundred percent where he was born. ‘Officially’ – and that’s what Shein spokespersons say – he came into the world 39 years ago in Shandong, located in eastern China. However, the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’ maintains, following an investigation into the character, that he is a Chinese-American citizen.
An ‘online’ business, your first business
Apparently Xu is, like Amancio Ortega, the prototypical self-made businessman. He was born, or so it is believed, into a very humble family. It is also not clear where he studied, whether at the Qingdao University of Science and Technology, or at the George Washington University in the United States.
Xu seemed to have a clear idea of where his business career was going to take him. At least, in part. His first company was, as it still is now, an online business. He created it in 2008 under the name ZZKKO. Although he knew the ‘how’ to sell, he still did not have the ‘what’ very well defined. At first he traded almost any product, like another Amazon or AliExpress.
He knew, however, that the success of the business lay in hiring small suppliers and satisfying, as immediately as possible, the consumerist impulses of the clients. In selling a lot, quickly, and with a low profit margin. The business architecture was also based on a powerful search engine and Xu’s ability to handle SEO.
In 2011, she founded Sheinside, an online wedding dress retail company, and the embryo of the current Shein, established in 2015. She took the company from Nanjing to Guangzhou, and there the consolidation of the business as it is understood today would take place. .
Firstly, surrounding himself with a team of young internet experts capable of detecting the latest trends in the world of fashion. And second, exploiting all the internet options, through advertising, but also with a huge network of ‘influencers’ omnipresent on the main social networks.
This is how Shein was forged, an empire with a presence in 150 countries, which has a turnover of over 22 billion euros and has more than 10,000 workers.
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