To Reverse The Waste, H&M Group Will Launch Online Sales Of Second Hand Shirts.

H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMb.ST) Anna Haines, head of the Sustainable Development Department of the Haines Maurice group (hereinafter referred to as H&M group), said that the group will carry out the sale of second hand shirts with the Swedish local market of Other Stories brand in order to promote other brands in the future.

Other Stories partner is Sweden's second hand clothing electric business start-up platform Sellpy, the latter in 2018 H&M group's venture capital fund H&M CO:Lab over $2 million investment, in 2017, Sellpy sales amounted to $10 million 800 thousand.

By Standford graduates Michael Arn o r as CEO, and partner Philip Gunnstam, Oskar Nielsen was founded in 2014, the electronic business platform Sellpy is one of Sweden's fastest growing science and technology enterprises, so far raised $21 million.

The platform comes from Sell Help, Michael Arn Arn r, and hopes that Sellpy will affect the way people live in the future.

The fast fashion industry represented by H&M group and Spanish partner Inditex SA (ITX.MC) India India Textile Group has greatly improved consumer demand for fashion in the past decades, not just allowing these privileges to be held in some European luxury goods, but at the same time, it has also caused great waste.

With the enhancement of consumers' awareness of environmental protection and sustainability, the fast fashion industry is facing great moral challenges.

When the Swedish company released the 2018 sustainability report at the beginning of this month, Anna Gedda said that the original intention of the company was to democratise fashion, but today's new goals have become sustainable. Only in this way can great fashion and design be extended for generations to come.

In 2018, the Swedish company claimed that its 57% (35% in 2017) materials were sustainable, of which 95% of cotton materials were recyclable.

Last year, the company recovered 20649 tons of old shirts, with a target of 25000 tons a year for 2020.

H&M group is the first clothing industry to release a sustainable report, while disclosing the supplier's large retailer. Subsequently, Indo Textile Group also followed. While the US and Japanese competitors Gap Inc. (NYSE:GPS) cover group and Fast Retailing Co. Ltd. (9983.T) fast marketing group also began to disclose the corresponding sustainable progress in recent years, and made commitments on environmental protection and protection of labor rights and interests.

In 2015, the Swedish group's namesake foundation H&M Foundation, sponsored by H&M founder family Stefan Persson, also launched a global innovation award to encourage innovation in sustainable fashion.

In April 5th, the 5 projects became the winners of the 2018 global change awards, including the recyclable The LoopScoop from Circular.fashion, the Sane smart Membrane project from Switzerland Dimpora, the Sustainable needle from Kenya Green Nettle Textile, the variable clothing giant from the UK, and the "pure leather" of Peru laboratory.

The above 5 projects were awarded a total of 1 million euros award from the H&M foundation.

In addition to the bonus, the H&M foundation also co managed consulting and information services Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) Accenture, KTH RoyalInstitute of Technology Royal Institutet of Technology, providing a one year innovation accelerator project for the above projects.

H&M group has also used supply chain tracking technology in the brand of the newly launched Arket, giving consumers a clear picture of all the clothes they buy from raw materials to suppliers. AnnaGedda said that this technology will eventually be applied to the H&M brand of the core of the group.

According to Anna Gedda, consumers are strongly aware of sustainable development today.

Fast fashion industry in the past two years, in the case of slow growth of sales of the two brands represented by H&M and Zara, the strategy needs to be changed. The Swedish and Spanish giants have been constrained by the downward pressure on gross margins resulting from strong promotions, and a large number of garments have become unsalable stocks or even been destroyed.

In the middle of last month, the Swedish group released the first quarter results in the 2019 fiscal year, showing that the sales of H&M group increased by 10.5% to 51 billion 15 million kronor in the first quarter, up 4% from the local exchange rate, excluding 6% of the largest market after the German online platform pition.

The gross profit margin of the group increased slightly by 10 basis points to 50% in the first quarter, while the market is expected to fall to 49.4% from 49.9% in the same period last year. The last gross margin improvement will be traced back to the first quarter of fiscal year 2017.

Pre tax profits fell 17.4% to 1 billion 43 million Swedish kronor over the seven consecutive quarters, with quarterly profits falling to the lowest level in the past 18 years, but still far ahead of the market forecast of 6.78-7.08 billion kronor.

It is worth noting that at the end of the first quarter, H&M group's stock remained as high as 39 billion 968 million Swedish krone, fixed exchange rate was 5% higher than that of the same period last year, and the share between inventory and net sales in the past 12 months is still 18.6%, higher than 17.9% of the fourth quarter.

Karl-JohannPersson, chief executive of the group, emphasized that the inventory situation improved further than the four quarter. Now most of it is clothing in the spring and summer. When it comes to the target level of inventory sales than when it will drop to 12%-14%, he says it can not provide a timetable.

Indy Textile Group also released its annual sales and profit growth in the middle of 3 months, reaching a five year low.

In the 2018 fiscal year ending January 31, 2019, the net sales of Indo textile group increased 3.2% to 26 billion 145 million euros, less than the 26 billion 450 million euros expected by the market, and the growth rate after the exchange rate was 7%, the lowest growth since 2014.

The group pointed out that "the growth of all regional markets, brand concepts and sales channels" promoted comparable sales (82% of total sales) by 4% annually, while the 2017 fiscal year increased by 5%. In addition, the growth rate of 3% in the second half of fiscal year slowed down compared with 4% in the first half of the year, and failed to achieve the goal of 4%-6%.

Apart from the growth of casual wear brand Pull&Bear and underwear brand Oysho respectively 11.2% and 7% in the year, the other five brands only had low single digit growth.

The group combined Zara and Zara Home in the fourth quarter to account for nearly 70% of the group's sales of Zara business, which increased by 2.2% to 18 billion 21 million euros compared with the same period last year.

In 2018, the Spanish group's net profit increased by only 2.2% to 3 billion 444 million euros, slightly lower than the market expected 3 billion 490 million euros.

The company can only raise its annual dividend by 17% to 0.88 euros per share, and the dividend payout rate has risen from 69% in fiscal 2017 to 80% in an attempt to attract investors. However, on the day of its earnings announcement, it still can not withstand the massive sell-off of investors and the company's share price plummeted.

Therefore, the second hand clothing sales plan is not only the H&M group's attempt to reverse the waste and environmental impression of the industry. With sustainable development, people may be able to make up for the pressure of inventory impairment to some extent.

According to second-hand online platform ThredUp data, the second hand clothing market in 2018 amounted to US $24 billion, which is expected to increase to 51 billion US dollars in 2023 in the next five years, of which 23 billion US dollars will come from personal re sale, and 28 billion US dollars from secondhand shops and donations.