*

Shein pitches to bring big brands onto marketplace

*

Household names key to winning more shoppers' trust

*

Company presented at event in Madrid last month

*

Move will see expansion beyond fashion

By Helen Reid

LONDON, April 30 (Reuters) - Online fast-fashion

retailer Shein is courting brands like toothpaste conglomerate

Colgate-Palmolive ( CL ) and toymaker Hasbro ( HAS ) as it tries to sell more

household names on its platform.

Known for cheap own-brand clothing and accessories, Shein is

moving into other categories and has given brands and retailers

access to its platform in nine European countries so far, having

done so in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico last year.

The strategy, part of Shein's plan to build credibility and

better compete with Amazon ( AMZN ), is enabling the business to

expand and develop new ways of selling goods ahead of a planned

stock market listing later this year.

Shein presented its marketplace services at an event in

Madrid last month alongside Colgate-Palmolive ( CL ), Hasbro ( HAS )

, Orangina maker Suntory Beverage & Food ( STBFF ), and

Spanish cosmetics brand Bella Aurora.

"Everybody associates Shein with fashion, but we are doing

all verticals," Christina Fontana, senior director of brand

operations for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Shein, told

delegates at a conference in Paris on April 17.

Seeing shoppers opening Shein and searching for other brands

provided the impetus, Fontana said.

"Our consumers want brands, if that's what they're

looking for, that's what we're going to give them."

Fontana, who previously worked for AliBaba ( BABA ), is one of

several marketplace experts Shein has poached from the Chinese

e-commerce giant and other firms.

That recruitment has helped fuel rapid expansion. Shein had

an average 108 million monthly active users in European Union

member states in the six months to Jan. 31.

But the company's growth has brought new complications,

including new EU rules requiring it to police its platform for

illegal or harmful products.

In Europe, Shein's marketplace is so far available in

Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland,

Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.

Whether the new marketplaces succeed and enable Shein to

compete with Amazon ( AMZN ) and AliExpress will depend on what brands

the company can attract, experts say.

"If Shein wants to compete as a trustworthy reputable

marketplace platform, it really needs endorsement from

well-known Western brands," said Xiaofeng Wang, e-commerce

analyst at Forrester in Singapore.

SUPERCHARGE SALES

In a Zoom webinar aimed at potential sellers in the United

States on Thursday, Shein's head of seller marketing Claire Lin

pitched an opportunity for brands to reach millions of shoppers

and "supercharge" sales.

"Our shopping experience is very sticky, it's very much

gamified," she said. "It's fun to shop on our site, so what we

see is the minimum shopping time is around eight minutes, well

above industry average."

Shein shoppers are Gen Z and millennial, and skew female -

with around an 80-20 split of women versus men, Lin said.

Home, electronics, and beauty & health are currently

top-performing categories, she said, and the only category Shein

does not offer is food and beverages.

The gross merchandise value (total value of products sold)

in the home category tripled in 2023, while electronics grew by

2.5 times, and beauty & health grew by 2.1 times, according to a

slide shown during the webinar.

Selling directly through a marketplace can provide a

significant sales boost for brands. But before doing so,

manufacturers typically seek assurances that the marketplace is

a good fit for the audience they want to reach, and that they

will have control over pricing and promotions.

Shein's platforms have attracted many third-party retailers.

Products from beauty and skincare brands like Caudalie,

CeraVe, La Roche-Posay, Shiseido ( SSDOF ), The Ordinary, Rimmel, and

Weleda are currently being sold on Shein's platform in the U.S.,

Britain, Brazil, and Mexico via third-party retailers.

Jayn Sterland, UK & Ireland country manager at Weleda, said

the Swiss cosmetics brand was not considering selling on Shein

directly.

When assessing a marketplace, reputation, perception, and

environmental impact are among the key factors the brand looks

at, Sterland added, pointing to sustainability initiatives

Weleda works on with Amazon ( AMZN ), where it sells directly.

Colgate-Palmolive ( CL ) did not reply to a request for comment.

A Hasbro ( HAS ) spokesperson said the company participated in the

Madrid event "to talk generally about the pros and cons of

marketplaces".

A Suntory spokesperson said: "We don't sell any of our

drinks on Shein's marketplace and we don't have any plans to,

this was just an opportunity to share best practise."

(Reporting by Helen Reid; Editing by Matt Scuffham and Mark

Potter

)