When hunting for cheap clothes or a one-wear Halloween costume, students often turn to ultra-fast-fashion sites such as Shein. The brand’s bargain prices, near-constant flash sales and seemingly endless inventory are notorious among consumers looking for trendy styles at low prices.
Buying clothes from Shein is easy to do. It’s popular, convenient and it’s certainly cheap. But is it the best decision for you or the planet?
While it may feel like you’re saving money by getting clothes from Shein, these "deals" often conceal costs to the planet, to garment workers and to your wallet. As one of the brand’s largest target audiences, students should stop supporting Shein and make clothing choices that will help save money and protect the environment.
Shein’s fast-fashion business model profits by selling high volumes of clothing at affordable prices, and it relies on rapid trend cycles to keep its customer base hooked. In 2021, Shein added nearly 2,000 new styles every day.
Shein’s business model is based on micro-trends and the assumption that styles will turn over quickly, causing consumers to periodically shop for a new wardrobe to keep up with trends and seasonal styles. High demand drives high supply and, ultimately, massive waste when these clothes are discarded after they fall out of fashion — or fall apart.
Shein's global reach magnifies its environmental harm. Its clothes are shipped out to more than 150 countries, worn — on average only seven times — by young people across the world, then donated or discarded. Fast-fashion items often end up in landfills around the world, such as the 30,000-ton mountain of used clothes in Chile or Ghana's Kantamanto market, the world’s largest landfill-market for clothes.
Many people donate their clothes to thrift stores instead of directly throwing them away, but this solution is a band-aid on the systemic clothing waste problem. In the United States, over 11 million tons of clothing end up in landfills each year, and 3 million tons are incinerated, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
However, these clothes don’t just harm the environment when they’re thrown away. Their production and distribution require high volumes of resources, emit greenhouse gases and release pollutants throughout the supply chain.
According to Shein, in 2024, more than 80% of its clothing contained polyester, a plastic material that doesn’t degrade and can shed harmful microplastics into the water supply when washed. The fashion industry is also one of the largest water polluters and greenhouse gas emitters. Earth.org reported that the industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions (the same percentage as the entire European Union) and pollutes waterways by dumping wastewater used to dye and produce textiles.
Shein’s harmful global presence isn’t limited to the real world; the brand also maintains a heavy presence online through social media platforms. In addition to its many official brand accounts, Shein invests a great deal into influencer marketing, particularly on college campuses.
Shein has skyrocketed to popularity over the past five years: it reported nearly $10 billion in sales during the first quarter of 2025, and the company’s net worth has grown 18% each year since 2016. Influencer marketing on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok is a large driver of this recent popularity.
Shein hosts U.S. college pop-ups to recruit campus ambassadors to serve as social media mouthpieces for its brand. USC was one such stop on the brand’s recent college campus tour; Shein’s tent was set up on Greene Street on Sept. 8, and students were lined up down the block for a chance to win coupons and learn about being an ambassador.
Shein Campus Marketing Manager Selina Mao hosted Shein’s stop at USC on its campus tour and said that, on an average campus, the company would garner over 4,000 visits to its booth and have 200 students sign up to be campus ambassadors.
Shein ambassadors and other fashion influencers post massive hauls online, influencing followers — often college-age or even younger — to overconsume clothing to keep up with trends. The result? Too much money spent on too many clothes you won’t wear before the next trend gains traction.
Shein makes trends accessible through their low prices, encouraging buyers to buy in higher quantities. This leads to overspending and an abundance of unneeded clothes, all in a futile attempt to fit in with what we see on social media.
Overconsuming clothes from Shein and other fast-fashion retailers helps no one. It pollutes our land, water and air, incessantly pushes trends instead of encouraging the pursuit of individual style, and harnesses influencers that convince us to empty our wallets for clothes we don’t need.
It may be too late to ship your Shein Halloween costume back this year, but next year consider sourcing your costume, and your everyday wardrobe, from more ethical places — such as one of Columbia’s many thrift stores or vintage markets, the wardrobe of a friend or the back of your own closet. Save your clothes from the landfill and your wallets from overconsumption by saying no to Shein.