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Betrayed by eShakti: Orders Surprisingly Vanishing Into Thin Air

The Flytrap by The Flytrap
4 weeks ago
- Last edited by: Kerbi Lynn -
Reading Time: 4 mins read
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Betrayed by eShakti: Orders Surprisingly Vanishing Into Thin Air
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This is an adapted excerpt from โ€œThe Enshittification of eShakti,โ€ by Andrea Grimes. It was originally published in The Flytrap, a worker-owned, intersectional feminist media collective founded in 2024.

eShakti
Credit: Rommy Torrico/The Flytrap

Once upon a time, eShakti was a unicorn in the fast-fashion forest. Their offerings were both on-trend and classic, and great for workwear, vacations, and even bridal styles, especially for plus-size women like me who enjoyed their size customization options. Before my wedding, I bought a cream-colored 50s-style cocktail dress to serve as my backup gown, because I am both curvy and mercurial: I wanted options for my look on that day, the big day. And eShakti literally delivered. Even better: the company advertised its commitment to โ€œthe health, well-being, and ethical treatment of all our employees worldwideโ€ on what is now a near-defunct website.

Today, Iโ€™m writing about eShakti in the past tense, not because the company flamed out in a spectacular going-out-of-business sale, or was subsumed in another fashion industry buyout, but because they seem to have just โ€ฆ stopped? โ€ฆ after a prolonged but mysterious decline. The first clear indication that something was up at eShakti surfaced in early 2023 with the beginnings of an online whisper networkโ€”though some of it involved all-CAPS rantingโ€”among shoppers warning of delayed and unfulfilled orders. The eShakti site remains deceptively live; users can fill their carts with clothing and accessories only to be told โ€œWe are currently unable to process your payment due to technical issuess,โ€ typo and all, at the final step. Itโ€™s a frustrating and cruel tease, especially in light of the untold numbers of eShakti shoppers who are still waiting on orders placed before the check-out function was disabled.

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eShakti Was a Plus Size Pioneer

During its heyday, eShakti was hardly a bastion of plus-size representation, but at least it never played dress-up with the literal body politics of fat liberation (as Old Navyโ€™s short-lived, in-store โ€œBODEQUALITYโ€ campaign did). If you couldnโ€™t preview what a tropical-print wrap dress might look like on a size 26 body on eShaktiโ€™s website, you could at least see what it looked like on your body, in your own mirror. And for a lot of shoppers, that was a relief on its own: to simply not be marketed-down to with gimmicks and false promises. It was enough to just be able to order cute clothes in the right size.

Customization was a major draw for eShakti shoppers, not just because itโ€™s nice to have clothes that actually fit, but because their made-to-order model signaled the promise of more sustainability and less waste. eShaktiโ€™s target consumer base is the ideal market for just that kind of thing: fashion-minded folks with more-than-Forever-21 money to spend, many of whom have been edged out of in-store shopping because of sizing limitations and low quality.

โ€œTodayโ€™s plus-size consumer is in her 40s, sheโ€™s an expert, and sheโ€™s more discerning,โ€ said Marie Denee, a fashion influencer and founder and CEO of the wildly popular site The Curvy Fashionista. That consumer, she said, is โ€œmore self-assured, and she can see through the okie-dokeโ€ from fashion brands making a money grab without investing meaningfully in reflecting plus-size shoppers back to themselves. And that was always kind of a weird thing about eShaktiโ€”you could order customized plus-plus-and-plus sizes from the site, but never see the clothes modeled on anyone besides a straight-sized, maybe even AI-generated, model.

Denee likened this marketing tactic to โ€œdating in the dark,โ€ saying โ€œtheyโ€™re afraid to be seen with us, but theyโ€™ll take our money.โ€ She described eShaktiโ€™s apparent demise as, on top of everything else, a potentially missed opportunity to build on a loyal customer base that, fundamentally, just wants to be seen. If eShakti were to re-emerge and really build back trust with consumers, Denee says โ€œthey would have to over-over correct, and it couldnโ€™t be for a season, it would have to be part of the integration of the brand.โ€

Of course, eShakti would need to be operational in the first place for any of that to happen. Whatever the cause of its declineโ€”a profit-tanking pandemic, natural disasters, or some as-yet-unkowable secret third thingโ€”eShakti seems to be in a bizarre kind of stasis for now. The site still exists, minus the check-out function.

Though eShakti never explicitly promoted itself as a plus-size fashion destination, it certainly sold itself as going above and beyond for its workersโ€”indeed it still does, on a zombie โ€œaboutโ€ page. Customized clothes are nice, but back pay and benefits for the people who once made them would wear a heck of a lot better.ย ย 

Tags: eShektiplus size designersplus size fashion
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The Flytrap

The Flytrap

The Flytrap is a worker-owned, community-oriented publication bringing you intersectional feminist journalism to unfuck your algorithm.

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Comments 2

  1. Lauren Graham says:
    4 weeks ago

    I bought about 8 customized pieces in early 2023. They were all amazing. They are my favorite pieces. Then I ordered a couple more and they never seemed to progress in sewing/shipping so I cancelled them and they gave me full refunds. Now, as you say, itโ€™s basically defunct. Iโ€™m hoping they come back again. It was a great service. I would have paid more, frankly. I missed where you found evidence that the company owed โ€˜back pay and benefitsโ€™. To employees?

    Reply
    • Marie Denee says:
      39 minutes ago

      Hi there Lauren, that information was from prior reports that I can get the author to share with you. It is sooo shocking, indeed as we were in love with them! When we found out this information we were just as stunned and saddened to hear about all of this!

      Reply

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