LEILA FADEL, HOST:
It's Goliath versus Goliath. The giant of fast fashion, Shein, is suing its ultracheap rival, Temu. NPR's Alina Selyukh reports.
ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: Shein and Temu are among the fastest-growing retailers in America. They both ship much of their stuff directly from China, like $1 umbrellas, $2 bracelets, $5 skirts, and their legal standoff cannot seem to end. A few months ago, the two already settled lawsuits accusing each other of dirty tricks to steal each other's customers. Now they're at it again. Neil Saunders is a retail analyst at the firm GlobalData.
NEIL SAUNDERS: I think this is just about them duking it out, them poking each other and sending warning shots across the bows.
SELYUKH: Temu's case against Shein accuses it of, quote, "Mafia-style intimidation of suppliers," telling them to stay away from Temu. This week, Shein's new lawsuit accuses Temu of running a fraudulent marketplace. It claims Temu subsidizes its cheap prices by pushing sellers to steal designs and make counterfeits, and the irony is that Shein itself has been accused of cribbing other people's ideas, which Shein rejects. Sheng Lu is a fast-fashion expert at the University of Delaware.
SHENG LU: Like it or not, no intellectual property rights itself is associated with the fast-fashion business model.
SELYUKH: Fast-fashion companies often face claims of copyright theft, and the idea behind these very cheap retailers takes it even further. Here's Saunders.
SAUNDERS: It's almost like an anything-goes approach, the Wild West of e-commerce.
SELYUKH: Shein and Temu are not just fast, but ultrafast, because they track not just trends, but microtrends. They list tens of thousands of new things every day.
SAUNDERS: And, of course, when that thing is done at scale, it does result in things falling between the cracks.
SELYUKH: Shein faces several lawsuits from designers and brands, including Uniqlo. One case even argues that Shein's copious copycat clothes amount to racketeering. Shein denies this. Now, with the new lawsuits between the two giants themselves, Shein and Temu, Professor Lu hopes they draw more attention to the precarious state of intellectual property rights in fashion and retail - though Saunders thinks they might just get quietly settled again.
Alina Selyukh, NPR News.
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