The innovation vitality of China's bottom economy from SHEIN perspective

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复旦大学经济学院院长：从SHEIN看中国底层经济的创新活力

近日，快时尚品牌电商平台SHEIN备受关注。此前复旦大学经济学院院长张军表示，中国在过去几十年积累起来的学习能力和庞大的市场规模的结合，确实塑造了中国底层的创业动力。这个底层经济的创新活力是巨大的，SHEIN就是代表之一。

张军认为，即使国际公司的技术略胜一筹，但在服务中国市场方面，中国的公司显然享有明显的优势，不高高在上，与市场需求更贴近，决策更加灵活。更重要的是，它们学习得很快。它们都在中国经济的底层，并在残酷竞争中自下而上成长起来。中国在过去几十年积累起来的学习能力和庞大的市场规模的结合，确实塑造了中国底层的创业动力。

实际上，中国拥有大量不为公众所知独角兽和“隐形冠军”公司，这些公司不仅在数量上惊人，更是在科技应用领域不断创新。规模超大并无限变换的应用场景，是这些底层创业者面临的极大诱惑。

立足中国发达而高效的供应链，也催生了大量以海外客户为目标的创业公司，这些公司在欧美市场的影响力远胜它们在中国的影响力。那些意识到可以充分凭借中国高效的仓储、分销和物流系统，以及在产品设计和生产加工领域的超强能力来服务海外市场的创业者，将会发现其可挖掘的国际竞争力非常巨大。

一个很好的例子就是SHEIN，这家专注于快时尚的跨境B2C（Business-to-Consumer，即商家直接销售给消费者）电商公司，尽管估值已达150亿美元，却并不为当地人知晓。得益于去年一家咨询公司发布的《中国独角兽企业研究报告2021》，中文名为希音的Shein才进入公众视野。根据该报告，中国目前拥有251家独角兽企业，而Shein首次入榜前十名，成为超级独角兽，迅速迎来投资者的青睐。

10年前，Shein不过是一家经营服装的跨境电商，像大部分中国跨境电商一样，除了官网外，以亚马逊和eBay为主战场。但从2014年起，公司创建自主品牌Shein，在美国、欧洲、中东、印度等市场推出网站，甚至进军Zara（飒拉）的老家西班牙，覆盖了全球200多个国家和地区。

拥有自己的柔性供应链是Shein最核心的竞争力来源。目前Shein的供应链聚集于广东。这里是中国最发达的制造中心，也拥有最完备而高效的供应链，包括物流和仓储。Shein也在一些重点市场的国家建有仓储。根据一些数据判断，Shein的新品从设计到成品只需两周，并且能在一周内运往主要市场。

这比Zara等传统快时尚产品的周期缩短太多了，因为后者通常在欧洲完成设计，再到东南亚和中国制造，而且在统一向世界市场发货之前还要送回欧洲总部仓储。最近多个公开数据显示，在Shein的第一大市场美国，谷歌上搜索它的用户已经是Zara的三倍以上。Shein已经成为排名第二的最受美国年轻人喜爱的电商网站，仅次于亚马逊。

其实，Shein不过是中国底层无数快时尚跨境电商平台的一个。除了风靡全球的社交媒体应用如TikTok之外，过去10年，从中国底层崛起的出海互联网公司不计其数，它们在欧美和南亚市场的影响力与日俱增，在一些国家如印度甚至已经到了不能被忽视的地步。

作为2003年暴发的SARS疫情的一个强劲回应，中国的电商因得到政府的支持而快速发展。五年之后，因受全球金融危机的冲击，中国决定借此机会加大对国内经济内部联系的推动和投入，集中提升中国在互联网、移动支付、通信、交通运输、物流、仓储以及供应链等基础设施的能力，形成发达的基础平台，这是中国底层创业和创新热流从未间断的源头。

张军最后指出，中国经济崛起现象的表里确实值得关注，以经济活动的联系而言，上层与底层之间的关系是多层的，其相互影响的机制也非常复杂，值得经济学家进一步观察和研究，看不到中国底层的经济活力，是无法真正理解中国经济的过去和未来的。

来源：中国网

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Dean of School of Economics, Fudan University: The innovation vitality of China's bottom economy from the perspective of SHEIN

Recently, SHEIN, an e-commerce platform for fast fashion brands, has attracted much attention. Zhang Jun, dean of fudan University's School of Economics, said earlier that the combination of China's learning capacity built up over the past few decades and its huge market size did shape the entrepreneurial drive at the bottom of the Chinese hierarchy. The innovation dynamism of this bottom economy is enormous, and SHEIN is one of the representatives.
Zhang jun believes that even if international companies have a bit more technology, Chinese companies clearly enjoy a distinct advantage in serving the Chinese market, being less superior, closer to market needs and making more flexible decisions. What's more, they learn quickly. They are all at the bottom of the Chinese economy and have grown from the bottom up amid cutthroat competition. The combination of the ability to learn that China has built up over the past few decades and the sheer size of the market has really shaped the entrepreneurial drive at the bottom of China.
In fact, China is home to a staggering number of unknown unicorns and "hidden champions" of companies that are not only innovative in number but also in the use of technology. Large scale and infinite change of application scenarios, is the great temptation faced by these bottom entrepreneurs.
Tapping into China's developed and efficient supply chains has also given rise to a number of start-ups targeting overseas customers that are far more influential in Europe and the US than they are in China. Entrepreneurs who realise they can fully leverage China's efficient warehousing, distribution and logistics systems to serve overseas markets, as well as its superior capabilities in product design and manufacturing, will find the international competitiveness to tap is enormous.
A case in point is SHEIN, a cross-border business-to-consumer (business-to-consumer) ecommerce company that specialises in fast fashion but is little known locally despite being valued at $15bn. Shein, known in Chinese as Xi Yin, only came into the public eye thanks to a research report on Chinese Unicorns 2021 released by a consulting firm last year. According to the report, China now has 251 unicorns, and Shein has made it into the top 10 for the first time, becoming a super unicorn and quickly gaining the favor of investors.
Ten years ago, Shein was just a cross-border clothing e-commerce company, which, like most Chinese cross-border e-commerce companies, relied on Amazon and eBay in addition to its official website. However, since 2014, the company has created its own brand Shein, launched websites in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, India and other markets, and even entered Spain, the hometown of Zara, covering more than 200 countries and regions around the world.
Shein has its own flexible supply chain, which is the core source of competitiveness. At present, Shein's supply chain is located in Guangdong. It is the most developed manufacturing center in China and has the most complete and efficient supply chain, including logistics and warehousing. Shein also has warehouses in key market countries. By some estimates, Shein's new products can go from design to finished product in two weeks, and can be shipped to major markets in a week.
That's far shorter than the cycle for traditional fast fashion products like Zara, which are typically designed in Europe, manufactured in Southeast Asia and China, and sent back to European headquarters for storage before shipping to the world market. In the United States, Shein's largest market, more than three times as many people search for it on Google as Zara, according to multiple recent public data. Shein has become the second most popular e-commerce site among young Americans, behind Amazon.
In fact, Shein is just one of countless fast fashion cross-border e-commerce platforms at the bottom of China. In addition to popular social media apps like TikTok, countless Overseas Internet companies have emerged from the bottom of China in the past decade, gaining influence in Europe, the United States, South Asia and, in some countries like India, becoming too big to ignore.
As a strong response to the SARS outbreak in 2003, E-commerce in China has grown rapidly thanks to government support. Five years later, due to the impact of the global financial crisis, China's decision to take this opportunity to increase the internal contact drive and commitment to domestic economy, focus on increasing Chinese on the Internet, mobile payment, communications, transportation, logistics, warehousing, and the ability of supply chain and other infrastructure, forming the basis of the developed platform, this is China's underlying source of heat flow uninterrupted entrepreneurship and innovation.
Zhang jun, finally pointed out that China's economic rise phenomenon table is really worthy of attention, in terms of link of economic activities, the relationship between the top and bottom is multilayer, the interactional mechanism is very complex, and worthy of economists further observation and study, can't see the Chinese at the bottom of the economic activity, is unable to understand the past and the future of China's economy.
Source: China.org.cn