To the extent that they reduce the cost per item to the floor and encourage people to swap tops to "todays" stripe, yes. The counter argument would be that they do more demand response and so produce less surplus where Tj Maxx and the like have to pre order to estimated demand.

So one (Shein) might be less bad per unit style but encourages more rapid churn. The other traditional model claims fast, but is slower, but has higher upfront build and ship consequences.

If I remember correctly, TJ Maxx usually buys excess product from other brands (and possibly removes or covers up branding if requested). So they contribute less to this problem -- if anything they give less successful runs a second chance should mitigate damage slightly I guess.

I don't think this detracts from your broader point, though -- your specific example just happened to be the unusual exception to an otherwise good rule.

Even if everything else was exactly the same, they'd still make it considerably worse by removing trying out the fit from the equation. There's no way of running a try/return/send to next buyer cycle on that price level, it's all about best guess and eating the cost. Reminds me if how the IP family of protocols, unlike protocols from the old telephony tradition, does not promise anything about the connection before the packet is sent out. Only that this time there's actual stuff ending up in bins. At retail fast fashion, fitting booths have not yet entirely disappeared.

Old Navy is also fast fashion.

TJ Maxx is interesting in that it is fast fashion but it provides a useful outlet for clothes that would otherwise have been trashed.

So immediately it is a positive since it ensures more clothes are worn than they would have been otherwise.

In the long run, however, by providing those clothes value beyond their original life TJ Maxx helps prop up the finances of fast fashion, so maybe it’s a net negative? It’s not clear to me.