H&M has launched on Nordstrom.com, marking the first time the Swedish fast-fashion brand has opted to list its products on an online marketplace in the U.S.
“We’re always looking at different ways to reach new customers, expand our customer footprint, and stay on top of the ever-changing retail landscape,” Kate Rogowski, head of customer activation and marketing for H&M Americas, told WWD.
Whether H&M decides to go onto another marketplace in the U.S. remains to be seen. “We will be looking at how H&M performs [on Nordstrom.com] to help steer what we might do next,” Rogowski said. “But certainly we’re happy to be with Nordstrom, where we can reach new customers and drive discoverability of our brand. This is the first time that we’ll be on a retail marketplace in the U.S.”
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H&M’s decision to launch on Nordstrom.com follows the Swedish brand’s aggressive brick-and-mortar expansion in the U.S., which began in 2000 with the opening of a flagship on Fifth Avenue and 51st Street in Manhattan. H&M has built up a major brick-and-mortar presence with 479 stores in the States currently.
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Selling H&M on Nordstrom.com could mitigate some of H&M’s recent sales slide. H&M Group’s sales for the three months ended Feb. 28 fell 1 percent in local currencies, to 49.6 billion krona, or $5.3 billion converting to U.S. dollars. The slight decline reflects a wave of closures over the past year. At the end of the quarter, the group operated 163 fewer stores than a year earlier, driven in part by the decision to shutter all physical locations of its Monki brand. H&M operates about 4,000 stores in more than 80 markets and sells online in over 60 markets, according to the H&M website.
In the U.S., H&M has historically sold through its own channels, including e‑commerce, physical stores, and exploratory social commerce initiatives such as TikTok Shop and Instagram Shop. While individual sellers on platforms such as eBay may offer new or pre‑owned H&M items, these sales are independent of H&M and not part of official H&M partnerships or distribution channels.
H&M Group chief executive officer Daniel Ervér has put a priority on productivity and brand elevation over scale, which is reflected in current initiatives. This month, for example, H&M launched a collaboration with interior designer Kelly Wearstler on a selection of key objects and furniture. And next month, H&M launches its second collection with designer Stella McCartney. The first was introduced in November 2005.
H&M represents a price range on the lower side for the upscale Nordstrom, with the majority of H&M items on Nordstrom.com priced between $19.99 and $49.99. Select higher‑priced pieces represent a very small portion of the assortment and will rotate in on a limited basis. Currently, the top-priced H&M item on Nordstrom.com is a limited $429 premium leather jacket.
H&M women’s, young women’s, men’s and kids’ products, as well as H&M’s sport collection, H&M Move, will be displayed on Nordstrom.com. H&M is being featured on Nordstrom’s home page. Also, H&M is listed on the menu of designer and brands, and H&M products will pop up when searching by occasion or category.
Asked why H&M chose Nordstrom over other marketplaces in the U.S., Rogowski replied, “We know that their customer is very highly engaged and very fashion forward. We felt that it was a good fit using Nordstrom as a platform to introduce H&M to new audiences.”
Rogowski explained that H&M with Nordstrom is “going through a true marketplace model,” meaning Nordstrom is not buying H&M products per a wholesale model. “So essentially, we’ll manage the back-end logistics on our side. We will fulfill the orders that come through Nordstrom.com with our own fulfillment warehouses, but then we’ll be able to leverage Nordstrom with regard to communicating with the customer, such as with returns. That allows us to maintain who we are and operate as a brand, but also live within this new environment within Nordstrom.”
Noting that Nordstrom is a very service-oriented retailer, Rogowski explained that if you order an H&M item from Nordstrom.com, you can return it to a Nordstrom store, or mail it back to Nordstrom, even though it’s shipped from an H&M warehouse. Once the item is received by Nordstrom, “We’ll manage the back-end logistics with them,” Rogowski said. However, customers will not be able to return the goods to H&M. “It’s an H&M product on Nordstrom. Nordstrom owns the transactional part of the relationship” with the customer, she said. Customers ordering products will receive deliveries within three to six business days.
Rogowski said H&M has put together “a well-rounded, curated assortment for any occasion, for women and men, specifically for Nordstrom…I don’t think that we’re skewing one way or the other. I think we’re making sure that our assortment is very well-rounded across those customer groups, but we also wanted to make sure that we’re supporting them with that young customer segment.”
Outside the U.S., the H&M brand can be purchased on certain marketplaces, such as JD.com and Tmall in China and NYKAA.com in India. As Rogowski said, “Globally, we work with a range of digital platforms across select markets, while in the U.S. we’ve also explored social commerce channels like TikTok Shop. Our launch on the Nordstrom marketplace is a distinct step into a curated retail marketplace in the U.S.” H&M has never wholesaled in the U.S.
Asked if some customers would migrate to Nordstrom.com from H&M.com, Rogowski said, “That’s a really good question. Again, we purposely chose Nordstrom because we know they have a highly engaged customer. It’s an opportunity for us to reach a new customer, and certainly it might be an opportunity for us to reach a customer that might not have considered H&M before. But we really took careful steps to think through that assortment we’re curating to partner with Nordstrom, so that we were complementing our existing channels versus taking away from them. And certainly, if there’s an opportunity that we can re-engage an existing customer who may have left the brand and is shopping at Nordstrom, that’s a value add for us.”
Regarding the possibility that in the future, H&M finds its way into Nordstrom department stores, Rogowski said, “We’re focused on launching our curated assortment within the Nordstrom marketplace. That’s our focus for right now. It’s a great opportunity for us to test how our brand performs within a third-party environment, to drive that discoverability, and access to new customers.”
“We’re proud to welcome H&M to Nordstrom Marketplace, expanding our ability to serve more customers on more occasions,” Miguel Almeida, president of digital and customer experience at Nordstrom, said in a statement. “Customers shopping H&M on nordstrom.com will have access to all of the same Nordstrom services they know and love, including loyalty benefits, customer care support, styling, alterations, and returns that are fast and easy.”