Shein power does little to help Reliance crack e-commerce

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

Online retail continues to elude India’s richest man.

The Shein India app, launched by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail in partnership with the Chinese fast-fashion giant, has struggled to gain traction in a market where Amazon and Walmart have been fighting neck-to-neck for nearly a decade. Downloads for Shein India nosedived from 50,000 a day shortly after its launch in early February to 3,311 in early April, according to AppMagic, a US-based app performance tracker.

In April, when US tariffs hit China, the app saw renewed interest as it was in the news, but experts are unclear on whether this growth is sustainable.

“Unlike earlier times, now … [the] market is saturated with multiple options and offers, and user interest can quickly dwindle,” Yugal Joshi, partner at global research firm Everest Group, told Rest of World.

Kushal Bhatnagar of Indian consulting firm Redseer, however, sees the late-April spike as a healthy sign, given that Reliance has yet to run paid marketing campaigns for Shein.

Reliance Retail declined to respond to Rest of World’s queries about its partnership with Shein.