Shein joins Chinese rival Temu in Dublin with regional office as e-commerce firms seek refuge from political scrutiny

Name: US lawmakers grill TikTok CEO on app’s alleged ties to Chinese Communist Party
Uploaded: 2023-05-13T23:00:11.000Z
Duration: 2 min 32 s
Description: US lawmakers grill TikTok CEO on app’s alleged ties to Chinese Communist Party

Shein announced a new regional headquarters in Ireland, known as a tax haven, covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as it expands amid tough competition

Analysts say the move is in part to avoid geopolitical risks, after US scrutiny of Chinese apps recently ensnared Shein and Pinduoduo sibling Temu

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A woman leaves a pop-up store of fast-fashion retailer Shein in Paris on May 5, 2023. Photo: Reuters

Ben Jiangin Beijing

Published: 7:00am, 14 May 2023

Shein, the online fast-fashion retailer founded in China, has set up a regional headquarters in Dublin to run its operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), which comes just weeks after Chinese rival PDD Holdings made a similar move in the city known as a tax haven.

The Dublin office will also host Shein’s IT hub for the EMEA market, Leonard Lin, the e-commerce firm’s head of government relations, said in a post to LinkedIn on Friday.

The creation of the office will bring with it 30 new jobs by the end of the year, Ireland’s Ministry of Enterprise, Trade, and Employment said in a statement on Thursday. The roles include positions in data analytics, security, finance and law.

Shein is seeking to expand its global footprint as it faces new pressure from Temu, the global budget shopping platform launched last fall by PDD, which also owns Shanghai-based Pinduoduo. Temu has been rapidly expanding to new markets, most recently opening in half a dozen European countries.

“A key strategy to achieving customer satisfaction is localisation,” Lin said in his LinkedIn post. “From the product, to supply chain, to marketing, Shein is deepening our localisation strategies in all our markets to better serve our consumers.”

Setting up regional offices helps cross-border e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu better understand local culture and consumer preferences, said Zhang Zhoupin, an analyst at Chinese market consultancy 100ec.cn.

Ireland has long been known as a tax haven. Its 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate is nearly half the 21 per cent in the US and 25 per cent in China. As a result, the country is a popular regional base for many multinational tech giants, including Facebook owner Meta Platforms, Google owner Alphabet, Apple and Twitter.

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US lawmakers grill TikTok CEO on app’s alleged ties to Chinese Communist Party

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