H&M Opens Long Awaited Web Store To U.S. Shoppers

By Sam Lewis

Swedish retailer joins rival clothing companies with online presence

H&M (Hennes & Mauritz, in case you were wondering) began taking online orders in the U.S. on August 1. The addition to HM.com happens nearly two and a half years after the Swedish retailer promised to deliver a digital shopping option for its U.S. consumers. In January of 2011 H&M put its U.S. customers on notice through Twitter by saying in a tweet, “Good morning is an understatement! H&M has decided to have online shopping in the U.S. at the turn of the year 2011/2012! Stay tuned for more.” In the following months, H&M opened up online retail to the U.K., Germany, and a few other countries, but the U.S. was greeted by announcements of delay — until now.

The addition of the U.S. web store gives H&M — which has almost 300 brick-and-mortar stores in the U.S. — access to the $54 billion market in apparel and accessories purchased online, according to eMarketer. Internet apparel and accessory sales are growing by almost 20 percent each year, and is second only to electronics in purchases in the e-commerce world. The online store also gives Americans who don’t have regular access to an H&M brick-and-mortar store, or aren’t particularly fond of shopping side-by-side with teenage mallrats, the opportunity to indulge in H&M’s merchandise.

So why did it take the company  so long to open the U.S. web store? Well, technical difficulties can be ruled out since H&M has e-commerce happening in 20 of its 49 countries around the planet. The supply chain, however, is most likely the culprit. Inventory management can be difficult in brick-and-mortar stores, and it can be an absolute nightmare in e-commerce, especially in a large market like the U.S. H&M most likely wanted to make sure its supply chain was adequately prepared to handle the volume of the U.S. market. “It’s about having the proper infrastructure,” said Megan Donadio, a retail strategist with Kurt Salmon. “You need to really be able to manage your inventory on a very holistic level.”

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H&M realized that it was no longer able to ignore U.S. web shoppers any longer. With the Swedish retailer looking to expand its sales base — 80 percent of sales coming from Western Europe — the tech savvy U.S. shoppers’ wallet was an untapped goldmine. Perhaps the opening of its U.S. web store — offering free shipping through August — will be the boost H&M needs to rebound from that 11 percent loss in the second quarter.