H M competitor analysis

Competitors

H&M has a number of major competitors. One major customer in the home European market is C&A, and in North America the company competes with discounters like Marshall's. The ways in which these companies competes with H&M are different, illustrating the fluid dynamic of retailing competition.

C&A is probably the most direct competitor that H&M has. C&A is a Dutch company that has stores all over Europe. From the similarity in the name to the similar approach to fashion -- basically offering low-end fashions at low prices, C&A has mirrored the H&M model. Both companies seek to compete at the low end of the market, but with their own clothing lines, and locations in key areas -- in particular Europe's major pedestrianized shopping districts. While C&A does not have stores in H&M's home market of Sweden, that is not H&M's biggest market. They compete in the larger European countries primarily, and C&A has almost 1575 stores versus 2629 stores for H&M. C&A is not a publicly traded company but is believed to do in the neighborhood of €6 billion in Europe alone (C&A, 2012).

In North America, the dynamic of competition is quite a bit different for H&M. H&M is a relatively new entrant to North America, and competes against large, established retailers, but few companies have the same business model. Companies like Marshall's occupy a similar space characterized by offering good fashions at value prices, but do so with a discounter model. This means that they offer clothes from name brands, not house brands, and simply act as a clearing house for old stock from higher-end retailers. So while they are competing, more or less, for the same dollars as H&M, they are competing in an entirely different way. Marshalls is owned by TJX, which operates several brands around the world, mainly with the same concept. These include Marshalls and TJ Maxx in the U.S., and they have TK Maxx stores in Europe as well. This is a much larger company than H&M, with total sales around $27.4 billion USD. (MSN Moneycentral, 2014).

A visual map shows the positioning of these competitors, noting that they are occupying roughly the same space, but with TJX separated a little bit more, and C&A having an almost identical strategy:

Fall Fashion 2014

A trend for fall 2014 is oxford-inspired shoes, for women. The trend was identified based on appearance at shows for Suno and Band of Outsiders, and is unusual in that this type of shoe is usually designed for men, but increasingly is seen on women (Ogunnaike, 2014).