It's Hard To Say: Can H&M, Zara And Other Fast Fashion Brands Escape To Online Transformation And Save Themselves?

Although Europe's fast fashion giants are slow to respond to the threat of e-commerce, they seem to be upgrading. The Swedish company Hennes&Mauritz, which owns H&M, Monki and Weekday brands, and Inditex, owner of Zara and Bershka clothing brands, is starting to close its stores to expand online sales.

So far this year, American retailers have announced that the number of outlets has exceeded that of 2018, according to data from Coresight Research. Although H&M struggled for profit last year, the company achieved a 18 month turnaround as share prices rebounded. One important reason is that H&M closed 140 retail stores last year and will continue to implement this strategy, reducing the number of stores it expects to sell from 175 to 130 this year. Similarly, Zara closed 355 stores last year and plans to close 250, but it will open 300 stores.

Although H&M and Inditex are shutting down a series of physical stores, the two companies' online sales plan this year is more noticeable. Inditex has opened online stores in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Israel, Serbia and Indonesia this year, covering nearly 500 million people, and plans to open autumn and winter stores in South Africa, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Columbia, Philippines and Ukraine, covering nearly 275 million people.

At the same time, H&M is committed to major upgrading of its online store, including improving navigation and product display, and shortening delivery time. However, compared with Amazon, Zalando, Boohoo and other mainstream online competitors, H&M still needs to upgrade in this area. The company also promised to increase the flexibility of payment on the basis of investing in financial science and technology Unicorn Klarna last year.

These fast fashion giants seem to have gradually realized the trend of the development of the electricity supplier. Their new rules of the game seem to enable them to survive and even thrive again.