Xu Yangtian
Xu Yangtian, also known as Chris Xu, is a Chinese entrepreneur who founded the company that became SHEIN in Nanjing in 2008 and built it into a global online fast fashion retailer.
What they did and why it matters
Xu built a model that orders very small initial batches from suppliers and scales only proven sellers, which changed expectations for speed and inventory risk in apparel e-commerce. SHEIN tests new designs in small runs of a few hundred units, uses sales data to reorder winners, and ships orders directly to consumers across borders. Its growth relied heavily on low-value parcels entering the US under the de minimis exemption, which the US ended in 2025. Brands competing on assortment and speed weigh the same trade-off between small batches and per-unit cost.
Related people
Events
Sources
- Chris Xu (entrepreneur) (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
- Secretive founder may come out of the shadows as Shein prepares to list (DealStreetAsia) dealstreetasia.com