H&M has announced plans to expand its online operations to nine new European markets this month “as part of our ongoing digitalisation”.
H&M Group’s brands, including Arket, Weekday, Monki, & Other Stories and Cos will all be launched online in Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Estonia and Croatia tomorrow.
On May 20, these brands will also launch in Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Greece.
It is understood that H&M had planned to launch these brands last month but was forced to delay their roll out due to the global pandemic.
“As part of our ongoing digitalisation, we are pleased to roll-out ecommerce for Cos, Weekday, Monki, & Other Stories, and Arket in these new markets,” H&M’s head of new business Anna Attemark said.
“We are excited to share our brands with our customers across the world and are happy to see this project come to life, thanks to our incredible teams.”
READ MORE: H&M’s new boss says its 5000+ “stores will change” as it focuses on digitalisation
Each brand’s dedicated website will offer customers who sign up and subscribe welcome deals on what it is calling a VIP shopping day, aimed at jumpstarting sales in the new regions.
In February, H&M’s new boss Karl-Johan Persson announced dramatic plans plans to take the company in a new direction, limiting store openings and using its already substantial estate to become logistics hubs for online orders.
“We think the role of the stores will change,” he said.
“How can we use those stores even better as logistical hubs for deliveries, for pick-ups, for returns?”
This came after H&M revealed that it was set to open its fewest amount of stores in over a decade, suggesting a shift in focus away from its traditional retail focus.
H&M will open 200 new stores this year while closing 175 stores mainly in Europe, China and the US, leaving a 25 net new stores to be open in 2020.
Instead of investing in expanding its store estate, Persson said the company is now piling funds into digitalisation.
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