By John Dutton
Are there two popular apparel brands more diametrically opposed than Canada Goose and Shein?
The first sells expensive winter apparel and is a home-grown success story with a respected global brand and in-house manufacturing at installations across the country. The company is publicly traded in Toronto and New York, and valued at over $2 billion USD.
The second is fast-fashion on steroids. A business model based on cut-price designer knock-offs sold mainly through an app, with on-demand manufacturing at thousands of outsourced suppliers, low product runs and finely tuned logistics. Shein is the world’s largest fashion retailer, valued north of $80 billion but has been in the news this year for fake influencer reviews and labour malpractice issues.
Canada Goose literally wears its Canadian heritage on its sleeve; Shein was secretive about its Chinese origins when it launched (I know this because, at the start of the pandemic, my tween daughter wanted to buy from a relatively new and ridiculously cheap online outlet that I was curious enough to research for myself).
And now these two brands are actively courting the Canadian market from opposite ends of the eco- conscious spectrum.
Canada Goose recently announced a trade-in program aimed at boosting the circular economy, whereas Shein has ramped up its hyper-efficient supply chain with the late-2022 opening of a shipping warehouse in Markham. This year it has also boosted its offline brand presence with pop-up stores in Toronto and suburban Montreal.
The Shein brand is so strong among its Gen Z female target market that customers actually paid $5 for tickets and queued for hours to enter the pop-up experiences where goods weren’t even available for sale. One shopper at the Quebec store told CTV that although she felt a bit guilty about underpaid workers in China, she wished that local retailers would also offer cheap clothing options.
It’s easy to criticize Shein for environmental reasons – the company released 6.3 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2021 – but like most things, how much of that falls on the customer is not black and white. Is it really this young Quebec shopper’s fault that she doesn’t appreciate the tangled web of economic currents that drive online retail, global trade and market capture? Her struggle to make ethics jibe with ego is definitely symptomatic of a growing trend among people I’ve discussed these issues with.
In a word, this trend is: reactance.
Reactance is a psychological phenomenon we all know well. It’s that feeling you get when you’re being told how to behave, which opinions to hold or what you should buy. It was first proposed by psychologist Jack Brehm in 1966 and explored in a retail consumer context around twenty years ago by business professors Gavan Fitzsimons and Donald Lehmann in the Marketing Science journal. Reactance is a mental backlash against unsolicited advice. It leads to doubling down on current opinions, or even doing the opposite of what you originally wanted.
So how does reactance manifest itself in times of climate catastrophe and economic hardship? Certain people really enjoy driving petrol engine cars, eating beef, flying overseas and, yes, buying fast fashion.
They don’t want to think about their ecological impact. And who can blame them? When corporate lobbying, political graft and systemic injustice produce societal currents that sweep us all along as individuals, why should anyone feel guilty about saving a few bucks on a dress? Especially when all your friends love the Shein brand too.
What’s more, Shein’s business model is built upon limited manufacturing runs, sometimes as few as 100 pieces. The Shein supply chain is the source of most of its emissions – the company admitted as much when it announced a plan to reduce emissions by 25% late last year – but maybe there is a way for smaller runs to be better for the environment than competitors that use traditional supply chains and inventory management? Could Shein position the brand around this idea instead of paying influencers? For its part, Canada Goose has a long history of influencer marketing, as well as fending off brand-damaging accusations of animal cruelty that resulted in the company going fur-free at the end of last year.
Of course the real solution to the intersecting issues of reduced spending power, global heating and underpaid workers is participation in the circular economy. Whether it’s through thrift stores, repurposed second-hand clothing, trade-ins or good old-fashioned darning and patching up old clothes…it’s all good. But right now Shein’s cheapest-is-best mindset seems to be winning the brand conversation, especially for younger people who are counting their dollars, and reactance means that they’re unlikely to change their behaviour.
If I could wave my magic marketing wand I’d look for a way to provoke reactance against fast fashion. Maybe use the old reverse psychology trick that savvy parents know so well: “Go ahead, kids: spend as much of your money on cheap crap as possible!”
Is it possible for Canadian marketers to learn from how Shein has built its brand? While it’s true that we can never compete with China on manufacturing scale, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t seek innovative ways to connect with younger customers. And, of course, all Canadian brands benefit when we consistently emphasize long-term core values that resonate with our home-grown culture, such as mutual respect, openness to change, and the ability to politely discuss meaningful topics that affect us all, such as climate change.
John Dutton is a Montreal-based creative brand strategy consultant and copywriter. He currently writes a bi-weekly newsletter, Discomfort Zone, that covers the feedback loop between brands, culture and tech.
