H&M Determined That The US Electricity Supplier Will Compete With ZARA.

July 31st news, fast fashion brand H&M The online sales platform will be officially launched in the United States in August, and the delayed online layout will finally start in the US market.

Reporters learned that H&M, a fashion retailer based in Stockholm (Hennes & Mauritz), began selling fast fashion apparel online in Sweden when Google first processed the first batch of search results. However, the regional development of its online business is extremely uneven. The online layout of the US market is not only far behind that of Europe, but also can not keep pace with the US offline business.

A few days ago, H&M announced that it will enter the world's largest online clothing market in August to get through the sales channel of its official website. After a long wait, American fans can finally buy H&M products online.

H&M's late arrival in the US online retail market has already lost many opportunities. Now it is difficult to compete with rival Zara. Zara In 2006, Inditex, the brand owner, succeeded in replacing H&M as Europe's largest clothing seller, and its sales growth over the past three years was over H&M.

According to research firm EMarketer estimates, the apparel online market has increased by 44% to 54 billion US dollars since 2011. Zara has grasped this opportunity very well, and online business has achieved a good performance. Since its entry into the US online shopping market in September 2011, the share price of Inditex, the parent company of Zara, has risen by 69%, almost two times that of H&M. Zara has been selling clothing online since 2010. Now it has launched the Internet sales business in 23 markets worldwide, while H&M has only 8 markets.

Of course, H&M has opened 300 stores in the United States. For many shoppers, the lack of online business is not a big problem. However, at present, H&M has no local stores in 14 states such as Montana, Dakota and Nebraska, and online business is becoming more and more important. For example, because there are no H&M shops and no online shopping channels, residents in North Carolina want to buy H&M clothes only in other towns.

Reporters learned that H&M announced in October last year that the online time of the AOL sales platform will be postponed from the second half of the year to the middle of 2013. In addition, H&M has said on many occasions that the company needs more time to prepare the US online business, partly because its problems in security and logistics have not been solved, and on the other hand, it is also due to the size and complexity of the American online market.

However, despite the backwardness of H&M's online business in the US, its offline business is developing steadily. In 2000, H&M opened its first American store in Manhattan. After that, the United States became its second largest market. In 2012, H&M sales in the US market reached US $1 billion 900 million, accounting for 9% of total revenue. H&M's expansion in the US also won strong brand recognition, even in cities without shops.

Merrill Lynch analysts pointed out that H&M can see the depressed demand in the US market. Although H&M's US official website does not sell goods, its traffic accounts for 20% of the company's total online traffic. Analysts also predict that H&M will gain more than 10% of revenue growth in the second half of this year, and the new online business will grow from 2015. In addition, H&M locks young. Fashion goal The crowd also coincides with the Internet population, which will bring good opportunities for development.