SHEIN, the Singapore-headquartered online fashion retailer, on October 20, 2026 opened what it calls its biggest Black Friday and Cyber Monday selection yet, under the name Year-End Sale, and paired the announcement with a survey of 24,863 US customers in which 61% put themselves at the top of their holiday shopping list. The release, issued from Los Angeles, gives no discount levels, no product counts, no start or end dates and no figure against which "biggest" could be measured.

In Short

SHEIN started its holiday sale for Black Friday and Cyber Monday and asked nearly 25,000 of its own US app users how they plan to shop this year. Most said they are buying for themselves first, and about one in five plans to start before November, which matters to anyone selling or advertising in the same weeks. What the release does not say is how big the discounts are, how long the sale lasts or what makes this year's selection larger than last year's.

What SHEIN put in the release

The announcement is short. According to SHEIN, shoppers can find "chic holiday party fashion and winter-ready kids' apparel to matching family pajamas" in the Year-End Sale, which runs alongside its "seasonal Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers." Free shipping is available on qualifying orders, and the deals sit on us.shein.com and in the SHEIN app. That is the full extent of the commercial detail.

The headline claim - the "Biggest Black Friday & Cyber Monday Selection Yet" - appears twice. Lisa Zlotnick, US head of brand PR for SHEIN, repeats it in the release's only quote, describing it as "our largest-ever Black Friday selection." Neither the headline nor the quote says largest by what measure. A selection can be larger by number of items on sale, number of categories, depth of discount or share of the catalog, and the release does not specify which, nor does it give last year's figure. The claim is SHEIN's own and cannot be checked against anything in the document.

Several other items are absent. The release does not state what threshold makes an order "qualifying" for free shipping. It does not say whether the sale runs in markets other than the United States, although the only web address it gives is the US storefront. Terms and conditions are not attached or linked. The release does not describe any coupons, app-only prices or loyalty tiers.

The document reached PPC Land as an email distributed through Constant Contact by an outside public relations firm on behalf of SHEIN. The hyperlinks inside it, checked through the PDF's link annotations, point to Constant Contact tracking redirects rather than to a SHEIN press page, a terms page or a methodology document.

The survey: who was asked

Most of the release concerns the Holiday Shopping Trends Survey. The methodology note is precise about the sample and silent about almost everything else. According to SHEIN, the survey was "conducted via the SHEIN app from September 6-14, 2026, among 24,863 U.S. customers aged 18+," and "all responses were self-reported, covering expectations, preferences and opinions around holiday retail, gifting and seasonal behaviors."

Three things follow from that sentence. Every respondent is an existing SHEIN customer with the app installed, so the results describe SHEIN's own app audience, not US shoppers in general - a distinction the release itself observes when it writes "SHEIN shoppers" in most places, though the subheading speaks of "U.S. shoppers." The answers are statements of intent collected in the second week of September, more than two months before Black Friday on November 27. And the release gives no margin of error, no weighting method, no response rate and no question wording.

In effect, the survey is a piece of first-party data collected inside the retailer's own app. That gives SHEIN a large sample at little cost. It also means the people answering are the people most likely to shop SHEIN's sale, which makes the findings more useful as a portrait of its customer base than as a forecast of the wider market.

The findings, figure by figure

According to SHEIN, 22% of respondents said they plan to begin holiday shopping before November. Read the other way, that leaves 78% who did not say they would start before November, a share the release does not discuss. The phrase "not waiting for the final weeks of the year" in the release rests on that minority.

The most prominent number is 61%. Asked whom they are shopping for, "the largest share of respondents, 61%, put themselves at the top of the list," according to the release. The other answer options and their shares are not published, so it is not possible to tell how far ahead self-gifting finished or whether respondents could choose more than one recipient.

Category intentions follow:

  • Apparel: 65%
  • Accessories such as jewelry, scarves and sunglasses: 62%
  • Beauty products: 53%
  • Home goods: 52%

The four figures add up to 232%, so respondents evidently could select several categories, though the release does not say how many options were offered or whether electronics, toys or other categories were among them. For a fashion and lifestyle retailer whose catalog is built around those same four categories, a customer base that prioritizes apparel and accessories is not unexpected.

On budgets, "more than 70% expect to spend the same or more than they did last holiday season," according to SHEIN. The release does not split "the same" from "more," which leaves open how many respondents expect an increase.

How the numbers compare with other holiday research

Other surveys published this autumn use different populations and questions, so they do not line up neatly, but they frame what SHEIN's figures do and do not show.

Simon-Kucher's survey of US consumers found households planning to cut holiday budgets by 5.5%, with 52% still seeing Black Friday as the main deal venue, down from 60%. SHEIN's "more than 70% the same or more" points in a different direction, but its respondents are self-selected customers of a low-price retailer, while Simon-Kucher sampled the general population, and the two results cannot be reconciled without the split SHEIN left out.

On timing, Google's guidance for the 2025 season said 34% of consumers start holiday shopping in October or earlier. SHEIN's 22% "before November" uses the same cut-off month with a lower share, again from a narrower audience. Adobe, in its forecast published in late September, put US online holiday spending at $275.1 billion, up 6.7%, with Black Friday falling on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30.

Advertisers have been moving earlier too. A Video Advertising Bureau and Tatari survey found 54% of 41 brands planned holiday TV ads before mid-November. Amazon closed Black Friday and Cyber Monday deal submissions for sellers on October 20, the same day SHEIN issued its release. An October start for a retailer's holiday event is now ordinary rather than unusual.

Why SHEIN's US push matters to advertisers

SHEIN's advertising footprint has moved sharply with trade policy over the past 18 months, which makes the timing and target of this release worth reading closely.

In the United States, the government ended the de minimis exemption that let packages worth $800 or less enter duty-free, with the suspension taking effect August 29, 2025. PPC Land's report on that decision cited Sensor Tower data, via CNBC, showing SHEIN's US daily active users fell 25% from March to May 2025 and its US advertising spending dropped 70%, as the company shifted toward US warehouse networks. Earlier that year, rival Temu had shut off all US Google Shopping ads on April 9, 2025, an exit that pulled its app from a usual top-five App Store ranking to 58th within days.

Europe followed. The EU ended its €150 duty exemption on July 1, 2026, replacing it with a flat €3 charge per item, with a handling fee due no later than November 1, 2026. Google Shopping data from Smarter Ecommerce showed that, in the weeks around the change, SHEIN's presence in European Shopping auctions dropped close to zero while Temu's share roughly halved. SHEIN also faces formal proceedings under the Digital Services Act: the European Commission opened an investigation on February 17, 2026 covering illegal products, gamified points and rewards, and recommender system transparency, with 145 million EU consumers using the platform - the kind of systemic risk case the DSA reserves for the largest services.

Against that background, a US-only holiday release with a US storefront link and a US customer survey fits a company concentrating its seasonal marketing where it still sells at scale. Whether SHEIN returns to US paid search and shopping auctions at volume for the peak weeks is a question the release does not address, and it is the one that matters most to advertisers bidding against it.

The fashion category itself is not growing fast online. NIQ's European data, published in July, found online fashion growth in Europe fell to 3%, with Black Friday accounting for 9% of annual online fashion revenue in the region. A self-gifting customer base matters in that environment because it reframes what a holiday promotion is selling: not only gifts for others but discounted wardrobe purchases timed to a sale.

What the release leaves out

Taken together, the gaps in the document are larger than its disclosures:

  • No discount levels. No percentages, price points or examples.
  • No product counts. The "biggest" claim has no unit and no comparison year.
  • No dates. The release does not say when the Year-End Sale began or when it ends, or how it relates to the separate Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers.
  • No markets beyond the US storefront. Other regions are not mentioned.
  • No free-shipping threshold. "Qualifying orders" is not defined.
  • No terms and conditions.
  • Partial survey results. Only the leading answers are reported, without question wording, other options, weighting or margin of error.

SHEIN's last line points readers to its corporate site and describes its "on-demand production methodology." None of it adds detail on the sale.

Timeline

Summary

Who: SHEIN, the Singapore-headquartered online fashion and lifestyle retailer, with a quote from Lisa Zlotnick, its US head of brand PR, and 24,863 US customers who answered its in-app survey.

What: SHEIN opened its Year-End Sale alongside Black Friday and Cyber Monday offers, describing it as its biggest such selection yet without giving discounts, product counts, dates or a comparison baseline. Its survey found 61% of respondents put themselves first on their holiday list, 22% plan to start before November, apparel (65%) and accessories (62%) lead category plans, and more than 70% expect to spend the same or more than last year.

When: The release is dated October 20, 2026. The survey ran September 6-14, 2026. Black Friday falls on November 27 and Cyber Monday on November 30.

Where: The United States, through us.shein.com and the SHEIN app. The release is datelined Los Angeles and mentions no other markets.

Why: For advertisers and retailers competing in the same weeks, the release signals SHEIN's seasonal focus on its US customer base after US and EU duty changes cut its ad presence in both regions. The survey describes SHEIN's own app audience rather than US shoppers at large, and the size of the sale cannot be assessed from what SHEIN disclosed.