In France, the Chinese giant of theultra fast fashion Shein was sentenced to a record fine of 40 million euros. The sanction follows an investigation between October 1, 2022 and August 31, 2023 by the repression of fraud. The Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and the Repression of Fraud (DGCCRF), which depends on the Ministry of the Economy, denounces the deceptive commercial practices of Shein with regard to the consumer.
If the Shein site offers consumer clothing at very low prices, it also gives them too often the impression-false it-to make very good deals. In his survey, the repression of fraud has reviewed several thousand products displayed at broken prices. However, in almost six out of ten cases, the announcements actually offered no drop in prices. Worse: in one in ten cases, the prices offered were even more expensive than those originally presented.
The study also points to the deceptive environmental allegations of Shein. For example, the group was unable to justify what concrete actions were deployed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Commitments, however, registered black on white on its site.
When questioned, the Shein group claims to have complied at the time without delay to French law. Not sufficient, however, to avoid this fine of 40 million euros, nor release the attention of public authorities to group practices which could, in the event of new breaches, be dereferency, that is to say, simply be withdrawn from the results of search engines as Google.
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