On April 26, 2024, the European Commission formally designated Shein as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act (DSA). The Commission cited its user number exceeding 45 million monthly users in the EU.

What are the obligations under the DSA?

The Commission clarified that following this designation, Shein must comply with obligations under the DSA within four months of its notification (by the end of August 2024), which include:

• diligently analyzing specific risks regarding the dissemination of illegal content and products - risk assessment reports must be provided to the Commission within four months of notification;
• putting in place mitigation measures to address risks, including adapting the terms of service;
• reinforcing internal processes, resources, testing, documentation, and supervision;
• evaluating potential adverse effects on consumer health and safety in yearly risk assessment reports;
• structuring the platform in a way that mitigates and prevents risks to consumer safety and well-being;
• ensuring external and independent audit of risk assessments and compliance with the DSA;
• publishing repositories of all ads;
• giving researchers access to publicly available data 
• complying with transparency requirements, including the publication of transparency reports on content moderation decisions; and
• appointing a compliance function.

Next steps

The Commission is competent in supervising Shein's compliance with the DSA in cooperation with the Irish Digital Services Coordinator and will carefully monitor the application of the DSA rules and obligations by the platform. 

You can read the press release here.