Week3-Case study - E-retailer review

H&M promotion methods

 

I’d like do the review of H&M, specific on promotion methods. All these methods are focusing on building up interactivity and hedonic atmosphere, which trigger buying behavior (Park, et al., 2005).

H&M was established in Västerås, Sweden in 1947 by Erling Persson. They now sell clothes and cosmetics in around 2,000 stores around the world. In many countries, people can also shop by mail order, either with H&M online shopping or using the H&M catalogue. H&M offers fashion and quality at the best price with a broad and varied selection for women, men, teens and children.

They have set up their online shopping system recently. It has applied most popular and effective promotion methods which can be counted as NO.1 in e-retailing. 

They use point-of-purchase promotion to get attention from consumers at the first sight. On one hand, they post a big photo about their new collections in the middle of front page, like a banner, informing consumers of their “best buy” clothes. On the other hand, they set up a brilliant interactive activity, called “fashion studio”. In that section, customers can try clothes on different kinds of models to see if the chosen clothes suit themselves. It makes the online shopping more vivid, just as being in a physical store. 

There is also a fantastic section, style guide, which is an online pictorial that tells customers what the current fashion trend is and shows how to be “in” style. When customers get a general idea about the popular style, they will recognize their needs and begin to shop online. So it evokes consumers’ need recognition imperceptibly.

Moreover, H&M applies video, magazine, facebook and cross-promotion with GQ magazine to provide more information about their brand and collections for customers. The purpose of it is to tell consumers that H&M has got variety of styles so that buyers can absolutely find the piece fits them perfectly.

Besides these fabulous promotion methods, H&M online shop has a problem with its delivery policy. Shoppers can not find any information about their delivery fee until they finish the payment part. People can only see the delivery fee after typing in all bank details and code. It is really an obstacle lying between buyer’s purchase intention and final purchase decision-making.

But all in all, the promotion methods of H&M are wonderful and impressive. We can dig out a lot of valuable concepts from study.