Shein

AMANCIO ORTEGA, founder of the Zara fast-fashion empire, got his start selling bathrobes in
northern Spain. Erling Persson of H&M peddled women's clothing in a small-town shop in
Sweden for decades before going global. Xu Yangtian had none of their tailoring experience
when he founded Shein (pronounced she-in) in 2008. Instead, the creator of the fashion world's
latest sensation was a specialist in search-engine optimisation. This expertise helped Mr Xu gain
an understanding of how to draw shoppers' attention in the digital world. And he has understood
this very well indeed, bringing to an audience of rapt Western fashionistas a Chinese style of
"social commerce", which combines social media with online shopping. Add in a revolutionary
approach to manufacturing and the results have been spectacular. In 2019 Shein's gross
merchandise volume (GMV), e-commerce groups' preferred measure of total sales on their
platforms, was $2.3bn, estimates to Zheshang Securities, a Chinese broker. This year it is
forecast to surpass $20bn. By 2022 analysts expect Shein's GMV to overtake Zara's revenues. In
May Shein was the most downloaded shopping app in America, overtaking Amazon.

Why has the price of electricity in Europe reached record highs?

A shortage of natural gas and wind are to blame

IN EUROPE THE cost of electricity is soaring. Prices had been rising steadily this year, as
economic recoveries got under way. But they have spiked in the past few weeks. Since the start
of September, wholesale power prices in Germany and France have climbed by 36% and 48%,
respectively. They are now hovering at around €160 ($189) per megawatt hour, a record level. In
Britain prices are at a whopping £385 ($532), up from £147 a few weeks ago. What explains the
surge?