H&M bullish on brick and mortar stores in India

By

Maverick Martins

Published
Apr 24, 2017

Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) plans to open a store every month as part of its strategy to drive sales through the brick and mortar stores as it takes up the competition to its global rivals like Zara and GAP in India, the Economic Times reported.

Janne Einola, chief executive officer, H&M India, said, “Worldwide, sales through offline medium still accounts 50% of total sales despite the convenience of ecommerce and that is why we are bullish on brick and mortar stores to drive our sales here in India where ecommerce still hasn’t covered much ground. We will be going ahead with our strategy of one store a month to drive our expansion.”

The world’s second largest retailer after Zara, which has opened 16 stores since starting 18 months ago, plans to add six to eight over stores by the end of this year. Zara, which entered India in 2010 has 21 stores in the country.

Einola was in Hyderabad to inaugurate the brand’s 16th store at K Raheja-owned Inorbit mall that is spread across an area of 33,000 sft.

The company is also considering setting up a new warehouse to meet its future needs and improve efficiency in its supply chain.

“We will be looking at having one more warehouse in the future to meet the growing demand and also to ensure our products reach our stores as soon as they are launched globally,” said Einola.

Currently, H&M has one warehouse in Delhi-NCR which caters to its pan-India needs.