Shein had earlier dropped a hint regarding the price hike last week and attributed the changes to the latest trade policy. The Chinese fast fashion had reportedly said in a statement that it wants to maintain the quality of its products, but it will require changes in pricing strategy
Shein Group has increased prices of commodities, including dresses and kitchenware in the US ahead of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on small parcel. Most of the hikes came to light on Friday with certain categories of the Chinese fashion giant products priced significantly higher than other, the Bloomberg reported.
In the beauty and products segment, the average price for the top 100 products increased by 51% from Thursday. For home and kitchen products and toys, the average hike in price was over 30%. For women’s clothing, the rise was 8%.
Due to the US government’s decision to end the “de minimis” exemption for small packages from mainland China and Hong Kong, e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu face a 120% tariff hike on many of their products. The exemptions will come into effect from May 2 onwards for goods valued at or under $800.
“President Trump is ending duty-free de minimis treatment for covered goods from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Hong Kong starting May 2, 2025,” said the White House in its order on April 2. Those goods priced at or under $800 will be subject to a duty rate of either 30% of their value or $25 per item, the White House added.
The US government will also increase the per-postal-item fee on goods entering the States after May 2 to $100 and even higher after June 1.
Both Chinese online retailers had dropped hint regarding the price hike last week and attributed the changes to the latest geo-economic trade rules. According to the USA Today report, Shein had said in a statement that the fast fashion giant wants to maintain the quality of its products, but it will require changes in pricing.
This is the latest strategy adopted by the Chinese fast fashion giant. Earlier in February, to shield itself from Trump’s tariff policy impact, Shein offered incentives to some of its Chinese suppliers to set up production capacity in Vietnam. On the other hand, another Chinese e-commerce platform, Temu, eyed Chinese factories to ship their own wares at scale to American warehouses, adopting what it called a “half-custody” framework.