The French market watchdog has imposed a fine of 40 million euros on webshop SHEIN. The originally Chinese webshop allegedly offered fake discounts, and France has strict rules about what a real offer may be.
Market authority DGCCRF investigated thousands of offers on SHEIN’s French website in 2022 and 2023. In many cases, the offers were not real, the organization concludes.
Retailers in France may only call something a discount if the price for a product is lower than the lowest price in the thirty days before the promotion began. This was not the case with more than half of the investigated offers.
For example, previous price reductions were not taken into account, or the price increased shortly before a discount promotion began. The price advantage was also exaggerated in almost one in five offers.
The French market authority is imposing the fine on Infinite Style E-commerce, the company responsible for sales via SHEIN. The management of the webshop reports via news agency AFP that Infinite Style E-commerce solved all problems with fake discounts more than a year ago.