Indian retailer Reliance Retail has re-introduced Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein to the Indian market through the launch of a dedicated app for fashionwear.
The initiative comes almost five years after Shein's original app faced a ban in India, stemming from geopolitical tensions that led to concerns regarding data security.
Reliance Retail launched the Shein India Fast Fashion app on 1 February 2025, as reported by Reuters.
Reliance Industries and Shein have not publicly announced this launch.
The new venture marks a strategic shift for Reliance Retail, which had previously incorporated various brands into its flagship fashion platform, Ajio.
The Shein app offers consumers access to a range of low-cost Western apparel, with dresses priced as low as Rs350 ($4).
The initial rollout of deliveries will be limited to major cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, with plans for nationwide expansion shortly.
Shein, originally founded in China in 2012 and currently headquartered in Singapore, saw its app banned in India in 2020 alongside other Chinese applications such as TikTok.
In December 2024, the Indian Ministry of Textiles gave no objection to the proposal of Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) to enter into a technology agreement with Roadget Business (Shein) to develop an indigenous e-commerce retail platform.
The initiative aims to establish a collaborative ecosystem comprising regional producers and vendors tasked with crafting goods for the Shein label, which will be marketed both within the country and internationally.
The anticipated outcome is an expansion of India's textile production industry, encompassing indigenous crafts, alongside the generation of substantial job opportunities.
The contractual arrangement ensures that the platform's governance and proprietorship are perpetually retained by RRVL via its fully owned subsidiary. The terms stipulate that the platform is to be consistently operated on servers located within India.
Every category of data produced through the platform's activities, encompassing both personal and impersonal information gathered from Indian consumers, will be stored domestically.
Shein will neither have entry to nor possess any entitlement to this data.
