Swedish fashion retailer H&M India to make online foray later this year

Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) is planning to have an online presence in the country this year.

The multinational retail giant nets around 12 per cent of global sales volume from online now.

"We plan to launch our online store this year," H&M India country manager Janne Einola told reporters at the Retail Leadership Forum here, without giving a timeline.

Deliveries would be undertaken by a third-party logistics partner, he said. "As of now we will not be integrating our physical stores with online operations, but we will evaluate the business as it goes along," he said.

The company will not tie up with any of the online marketplaces, and will go solo for online sales, Einola said.

While the H&M India country manager didn't put a number to the online sales expectations from here, he said "it's a market with good potential".

H&M India had posted about twofold spike in sales at over Rs 955 crore for the fiscal to November 2017, making India one of its fastest growing markets. Its sales stood around Rs 490 crore in 2016. But India does not feature among the top 10 markets for the company that is led by Germany, the US and Britain.

On the physical stores front, it is planning to open two more stores in the Mumbai metropolitan region this month, and one more in Mysore later this year.

"Currently, we have 29 stores, including the two new ones in Mumbai, and we will add one more in Mysore. We have been adding one store a month since we began operations a little over two years ago," Einola said, adding 75 per cent of its stores are present in large metros, but going forward it plans to focus on smaller cities as well.