France fines Shein US$47 million for ‘deceptive’ pricing amid EU scrutiny

The French government has fined online retailer Shein €40 million (US$47 million) for “deceptive marketing practices” and incomplete information about the environmental impact of its products.

The penalty was announced just days after a European Union official said on Monday that he was “deeply concerned” about the millions of small parcels entering the region every day, many from Chinese-founded platforms like Shein and Temu.

The fine by France’s Ministry of Economy followed investigations conducted between October 1, 2022, and August 31, 2023, which found that Shein’s French entity, Infinite Style E-commerce, “had misled consumers about the reality of the reductions available to them”, according to a statement on the authority’s website on Thursday.

Shein did not offer discounts based on the lowest price in the previous 30 days, as required by local rules, and sometimes raised certain prices before applying a reduction. As a result, 57 per cent of the promotions offered no price reduction, 19 per cent gave a smaller reduction than advertised and 11 per cent were actually price increases, the ministry found.

In addition, Shein failed to “to provide information on the environmental quality of the waste-generating products it markets in France”, the ministry said in a separate statement on Thursday. This resulted in a fine of nearly €1.1 million.

An investigation in 2023 found that more than 700 products sold by Shein in France did not disclose that they “release plastic microfibres into the environment during washing”, as requested by the government.