Shein’s Year-on-Year Success Counters Asos’ Decline in Monthly Breakdown

A year-over-year comparison of monthly growth rates shows the trajectory of retailer revenues at a level of detail rarely seen before. More specifically, the rate shows the change in monthly sales from the previous year.

Three patterns are visible in the current depiction of monthly YoY changes, resulting in three distinct characterizations: The soaring growth champion, the steady incumbent, and the underperformer.

Diving deeper into the global fashion market, who’s who?

Shein.com: A Growth Champion par Excellence

Taking a closer look at the year-on-year monthly growth rates, one retailer stands out: fashion upstart Shein. In 2024, Shein posted an overall annual increase of 31.6% in first-party net sales, with consistently positive year-on-year growth spread across the past 12 months.

This means that even the lowest YoY monthly growth was at a positive value of 5.2% in January 2025. That slowdown came immediately after Shein’s thriving month of December 2024, when it saw a 48% year-over-year increase.

Overall, Shein’s year-on-year development each month was at 20% to 40% of the previous year’s value. This shows that despite the criticism, the demand for its products has been steady. We therefore gave it the label as “soaring growth champion”, due to its consistent increase in sales volume.

Other patterns leave other characterizations, as can be seen in the paths of the following retailers.

H&M and Zara Show a Similar Yearly Performance

The two “steady incumbents” in the mix are H&M and Zara. Net sales on hm.com slowed at an annual rate of -0.6%, while zara.com grew by 4.4% year-on-year.

Breaking down both of their developments over the previous 12 months shows that their path was very similar. Both had ups and downs, with some negative growth rates. Even though it is paramount to consider that Zara and H&M operate a strong physical store network, the year-on-year development of its monthly eCommerce sales shows that both their respective online platforms have mostly stagnated or declined compared to the previous year. This is with the exception of the beginning of this year, when a slight upward trend was observed from January to March.

Although their performance wasn't as stellar as the previous category, the steady incumbents are in a better position than the following.

Asos Represents a Declining Branch of Fashion Retail

Asos.com is an example of the rather unflattering category of underperformers. Its annual growth rate in 2024 is already at a poor level with a decline of -16.2%. This pattern can be further traced in the 12-month review of its year-on-year changes.

Basically all of asos.com’s year-on-year growth rates over the past 12 months have been negative, except for August ’24, when it was at 6.9%. This one positive rate is not enough, however, to make up for the remaining months in which degrowth has been constant.

Asos.com has been in decline for years on end now, starting with the opening of physical locations after the pandemic and the introduction of players with a low-cost assortment vying for space. One of these players is Shein, of course, although there are many others in the category, such as trendyol.com and uniqlo.com. Not to mention the marketplaces with an upstart history, such as Temu and AliExpress, which are undercutting long-established players like Asos at their own game.