The Swedish fast-fashion retailer closed out its first half of the year on firmer footing, having plowed through the inventory piles that had previously forced debilitating price slashing.
H&M on Thursday said it calculates that in the current quarter, the cost of markdowns in relation to sales will decline by about 1.5 percentage points year over year, making it the fourth straight with a reduction in markdowns. “The H&M group continues to increase full-price sales, reduce markdowns and increase market share, showing that customers appreciate our collections and the improvements we are making to the product assortment and the customer experience,” CEO Karl-Johan Persson said in a statement, where he also warned that the investments the company is making “are driving costs in the short term.”
