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fast fashion brand h&m opens up new online e-commerce channels. on september 29, a beijing business daily reporter discovered that fast fashion brand h&m had opened official flagship stores on e-commerce platforms pinduoduo and douyin. among them, the h&m store on the pinduoduo platform showed a total of 462 people following it, and 219 items had been put together; the h&m official account on the douyin platform posted a total of 402 works, with a total of 66,000 followers. up to now, fast fashion brand h&m has settled on four e-commerce platforms: jd.com, taobao, douyin, and pinduoduo.

in response, the relevant person in charge of the fast fashion brand h&m responded that this move is to provide chinese consumers with an omni-channel shopping experience. h&m’s store in pinduoduo will officially open in late october.

from focusing on self-operated channels to embracing e-commerce platforms, it is not difficult to see that fast fashion brand h&m is actively adapting to current consumer trends and making localized adjustments. however, the data of fast fashion brand h&m’s first live broadcast on douyin’s official account was not ideal. according to gray dolphin data, on the evening of september 26, the account’s first live broadcast lasted 4 hours, with 66 products on the shelves, 33,000 viewers, and 1,557 new fans, but the average stay time per person was only 42 seconds. the ability to retain viewers over time is low, and there are no gmv statistics yet.

in addition, in september this year, h&m released its financial report for the first three quarters of fiscal year 2024, which showed that sales in asia, oceania and africa fell 1% year-on-year to 22.218 billion swedish krona, with a net decrease of 36 stores to 1,065.

perhaps it is due to the pressure of operating performance that h&m took the initiative to explore the direction of e-commerce platforms pinduoduo and douyin. regarding h&m's entry, zhang peiying, an expert in the field of luxury fashion, said bluntly that this will make it easier for h&m to reach more consumers and obtain first-hand feedback from customers. however, pinduoduo and douyin platforms are different from self-operated channels such as h&m’s official website and mini programs. h&m also needs to more proactively adapt to the platform’s traffic delivery rules to achieve more gmv.

zhang peiying further pointed out that in the future, h&m will make further efforts in supply chain inventory management, product design and other aspects. the biggest problem in the development process of fast fashion brands and even affordable luxury brands is supply chain inventory management, which requires a good balance between new products of the season, classic models and even discounted promotional models. at the same time, with the rise of local fast fashion brands, h&m must proactively adapt to local consumption trends, adjust localization strategies, and focus on product design in response to the consumption needs of chinese consumers.

although the new attempt on the e-commerce platform has not yet achieved significant results, greater china has always been an important market for h&m. saed el-achkar, retail president of greater china, publicly stated that h&m has always regarded china as a very important market and will continue to upgrade offline stores and explore more digital channels in the future.

in terms of localization adjustment, h&m will set up a china design center at the end of 2022. in april this year, h&m announced an in-depth cooperation with shanghai fashion week and will launch a new chinese designer cooperation series in 2024. the series is planned to be released during shanghai fashion week in the fall of 2024.

beijing business daily reporter wang siqi