“Good morning is an understatement! H&M has decided to have online shopping in the U.S. at the turn of the year 2011/2012! Stay tuned for more.” That was a tweet from the company in, yes, January 2011. A year passed, then another. Now the fast-fashion retailer says U.S. customers will be able to shop from its website sometime this summer. Really.
In the Swedish company’s annual report, released Tuesday, and in a press conference last week, executives didn’t get more specific than that. With good reason: The company has announced and pulled back from launch dates at least twice since that 2011 tweet. H&M offers online shopping to customers in eight of its 48 markets around the world: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and the United Kingdom.
