H&M to go online in the UK
H&M is to start selling online in the UK from next autumn, following the decision made by its fast fashion arch-rival Zara to do the same last week.
The announcement came as the Swedish fashion giant revealed third-quarter pre-tax profits were slightly higher than expected, although August sales were heavily down.
H&M, the world’s third-biggest clothing retailer by sales, says pre-tax earnings in the nine months to the end of August were up 4% to 4.77 billion Swedish Kronor (£428m) compared with a forecast SEK4.75bn (£426m), and SEK4.59bn (£412m) last year.
Year-on-year sales fell 3% in local currencies compared with the expected 5% rise. For the month of August, total sales fell by the same amount, but like for like sales plummeted 11%.
UBS analyst Andy Hughes said the fall was down to a lack of stock. “H&M seems to have run out of Spring/Summer stock as a result of very cautious budgets. Other retailers have been equally cautious but have been able to chase stock to avoid this,” he said in a note.
So far this year H&M has opened 85 stores and closed nine, with the total now numbering 1,840, of which 31 are franchise outlets.
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Readers' comments (2)
Terry Hunter, MD, CyberDMG | 25-Sep-2009 8:57 am
H&M's potentially large product catalogue size makes it an ideal candidate to adopt ecommerce, offering its complete range online in a manner that adopts best practices for online store visual design, product layout, user experience, information architecture and interaction design. One observation of its high street retail presence is the sheer volume of different items on offer; while this extensive choice needs to be reflected online, visiting customers must also be given a way to easily navigate around the virtual shop floor, without being overwhelmed by the experience.
The issue of a lack of spring / summer stock must also be avoided once the ecommerce offer is live – obviously any customer clicking through to its site only to be told items are unavailable will be highly unlikely to return. A key factor for H&M to avoid stock-outs would be to ensure their ecommerce platform and its supporting business processes are tightly integrated within an end-to-end supply chain strategy.
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Rajat Kataria | 28-Sep-2009 2:34 pm
H&M could benefit from benchmarking against the best online/multichannel businesses in UK and learn from mistakes that others might have committed so as to get their online strategy right. Core to that would be to select a ‘Technology Agnostic’ partner who could help them to select a tool which is right for their unique business rather than following the herd.
It also has an opportunity to raise the bar by offering services online to increase conversions and offer exceptional overall customer experience.
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