Swedish clothing retailer Hennes and Mauritz (H&M) plans to reduce several of its upcoming store sizes in India by nearly half due to expensive real estate and space crunch in leading malls and multiple sources.
Many of the new stores will be in the range of about 15,000-17,000 sq ft, one of the smallest globally for the fast fashion giant that otherwise operates sprawling outlets spread over 25,000 to 50,000 sq ft space.
“There has been a shift in their internal policy. They are looking for flagship stores in various cities in the range of 30,000 sq ft and all the other stores will be around 15,000 to 17,000 sq ft,” a person familiar with H&M plans but asked not to be identified.
“They have realised real estate is expensive and it is difficult to get space. Therefore, they have decided to reduce the size and the proportion sales and size don’t go hand in hand here.”Currently, H&M Retail, a fully-owned subsidiary of the world’s second largest fashion retailer, operates six stores in India in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru and Mohali each in the range of 25,000-37,000.
“The availability of attractive business locations is the major deciding factor in our rate of expansion, the best business loca tion is so important that we would rather hold off from opening a new store and wait until the right location becomes available. We see tremendous potential to open many more stores in India which will be determined by real-estate opportunities and retail market development,” a H&M spokesperson said.
