Marketing Mix of H&M: Strategies, Issues, and Recommendations

This report provides an in-depth analysis of H&M's marketing mix, focusing on the 8Ps: product, price, place, promotion, people, physical evidence, process, and partnerships. It examines H&M's strategies, including its approach to pricing, sourcing, distribution, and promotion, and how these elements contribute to the brand's success. The report also identifies major marketing issues faced by H&M, such as those related to advertising, supply chain management, and logistics, offering potential recommendations for improvement. Furthermore, it highlights H&M's customer-centric approach, emphasizing the importance of customer service, training, and the overall customer experience in maintaining brand loyalty and market position. The analysis covers the company's expansion, online presence, and its ability to adapt to market trends, with a focus on its ability to offer fashion products at competitive prices and maintain customer satisfaction.

RUNNING HEAD: Marketing Mix of H&M 0
Marketing mix of H&M
H&M strategies and issues

H&M strategies and issues 1
Executive Summary
The main aim of this report is to analyse the 8ps of marketing in the context of clothing brand
i.e. H&M. The brand H&M is one of the well-known clothing brand which offers variety
number of products line i.e. clothing, shoes, bags, jewellery and many more. It aims at
focusing on providing the fashion products with very reasonable price. There are several
strategies followed by the brand. H&M aims at maintaining the strong relationship with the
customers by providing them fashion clothes at very affordable price. H&M also creates a
healthy environment by providing number of refreshed stock time to time. H&M has
successfully been capable of handling the emerging market and ranking its position in the
fashion field.
Likewise, the below report also includes the issues that were involved in the marketing of the
brand and creating awareness among its potential customers. There were several marketing
issues like advertising and promotion, issues in process, issue in supply chain management
and issue in logistics department which can easily be solved if worked efficiently. The
marketing strategies of the brand H&M has been observed through the marketing mix i.e.
product, price, place, promotion, people, physical Evidence and partnerships. These all
factors of marketing mix has been briefly explained in the report with some possible
recommendations.

H&M strategies and issues 2
Contents
Marketing Mix.......................................................................................................................................3
Price:..................................................................................................................................................3
Place:.................................................................................................................................................4
Promotion:.........................................................................................................................................4
Product:.............................................................................................................................................5
People:...............................................................................................................................................6
Physical Evidence:..............................................................................................................................6
Process:.............................................................................................................................................6
Partnerships:.....................................................................................................................................7
Major issues of marketing mix involved in H&M brand.........................................................................7
Recommendations.................................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................9
References...........................................................................................................................................10

H&M strategies and issues 3
Marketing Mix
Marketing mix is nothing but a set of combination of several elements that go along with the
marketing strategy for any company. It enables company to achieve the marketing objectives,
goals, mission and vision of the company (Armstrong, 2016). This mix helps to identify the
needs and clearly differentiate between the products from its competitors. It is also defined as
a set of actions or tactics used by a company to promote and advertise its brand and product
in the market. Basically, there are 7p’s of marketing that cover the marketing mix of a
company. Here, 7p’s of marketing mix will be further explained using a reputed clothing
brand H & M.
Price:
Price is the total cost of value that is used for the sale of the product. It also depends on the
cost of the production, targeted segments, ability of the market to be pay, supply and demand
of the product in the market, and some other direct and indirect factors.
Here, pricing strategy of H&M is set and designed according to the needs of the customers
and the needs of the customers is low price with high fashion demands. In fact, this has
become one of the biggest challenges faced by the brand because it is very difficult to
manage the combination of high fashion with low price. But H&M successfully aimed to
achieve such objective using two major steps (Pratap, 2017).
First one is outsourcing the production of the products to many countries where the labour
cost was very low. It helped them to achieve low cost for the product. Moreover, outsourcing
of product was arranged according to different product. The high fashion products which
used to target European market were mainly produced in Turkey because of the short life
cycle of the product. Major products were produced in Asia because they provide long
transportation time and cover reduced risk (Zozi, 2014).
Second one is it conduct strict cost to control its plan. For an example. Very few top-level
executives have secretaries and have mobile phone privilege which helps to incur low cost for
the company. So, these were the two major steps followed by H&M that helped them to
achieve a low fashion business in the trending market (Shen, 2014).
H&M has successfully adopted a pricing strategy that has the broader pricing range which
will best be suited for the customers. To maintain a median pricing strategy, they keep a lot
of products with a heavy discount in it. This helps them to increase the sales volume of the

H&M strategies and issues 4
product which results in creating the larger revenue for the company as well. Sometimes, it
also offers discounts on its fresh stocks and proved itself as the leader in cutting costs at each
possible corner.
Place:
Place is defined as the area where the company or the brand sells its products to its
customers. H&M is the ranked as the second clothing retailer across the whole world that
serves the network in an around fifty-five countries. The head office of the company takes
care of every aspects of the products from the production department and the planning of the
merchandise. The products of this brand are made in nearly eight hundred factories which are
established in Asia and Europe (MBA, 2017).
Today the outlets of H&M are easily available and convenient because customers are able to
shop many products at one single store. The company has also expanded its locations with a
very reasonable price which is easily affordable by every customer. It has also established its
locations at very high-profile areas. The very first H&M outlet was opened in `947 and today
it manages 3500 stores across the world. It purchases raw materials directly from its suppliers
and then after the preparation, sells its products directly to the retail outlets. It has also
offered online digital platform to its potential customers where customers can go through all
the products in their leisure time and buy the desired products ordering via internet. H&M
logistics are simple, reliable and transparent (Mo, 2015). Basic products are made in Asia
while fashionable products are made in turkey. The products that are produced in Asia are
transported by ocean to incur low cost. While in Europe, all the goods are transported by
railway. So, 90% of the transportation are done via rail or ocean. Air is very rarely used
because it charges a lot to bear the cost. H&M uses direct distribution channel for the sell of
its goods i.e. from producers to customers. It does not involve any intermediaries and aims at
cutting the middle transaction. It also aims at ensuring at delivering its products with a
quicker time. Since, H&M refreshes its product on daily basis, it assures basic access to its
customers and manages the command from headquarter to the outlets effectively (Kotabe,
2014).
Promotion:
Identifying and understanding the target audience is basic rule to develop the promotional
strategy by any company. H&M target audience are very young women who are fashion
obsessed and who wants more fashion cloth at low price. Promotional strategy includes
advertising, internet promotion, and sales promotion. Moreover, H&M promotional strategy

H&M strategies and issues 5
is highly consistent with the whole marketing strategy (Mastro, 2017). Today, customers
need high fashion with low price which is offered by H&M. basically, the promotional
actions of H&M focuses on major two factors i.e. It is quite easy to find the posters and
hoarding of H&M which are available in fashionable style and price tagged always with the
clothes. If we see the price tagged in Zara or Gap, they are always seen small but H&M
always focuses on putting the price at the very obvious position which can easily be seen and
observed by the customers (Biew, 2017).
H&M also aims at conducting an eye catching promotional events where they invite famous
fashion designers who design clothes for them. For example, H&M had invited Karl
Lagerfeld in 2004, McCartney in 2005 and many more. This helped them to create the brand
image and generate public awareness in the mind of every customers.
Promotional activities of H&M have been successfully revealed high ability to gain quick
response from its customers. H&M has also appointed watchdog who will look after the
working condition of the place and conduct protection which will increase the brand image
(Lu, 2014).
Product:
H&M is one of the most reputed and trusted clothing brand with thousands of retail outlets
across the world. The core varieties of products under this brand are clothing and accessories
for both women and men. Those sections include dresses, basic jumpers, vests, pants, jeans
shirts, shoes, purses and jewellery.
The brand focuses on both the quality as well as maintaining low price. They launch new
product lines in regular intervals which enables the customers to get fresh product. At least
25% of the stock in the company includes fast fashion products and younger generation finds
the reasonable price with latest fashion trends (H&M, 2011).
They basically focus on the young range of segments which results in the huge amount of
sales of products. Special designers design the clothes for the company with increase the
brand image. H&M also sells home textile sand decorative products which is refreshed and
updates time to time. H&M has also launched beauty product line in it in 2015 which sells
both beauty and makeup products (Bhasin, 2017).

H&M strategies and issues 6
Cheap Monday: it serves both sexes in terms of fashion and style. It influences street fashion
style and encourages youth to buy its products. The core product of this brand is denim rage
which is sold at reasonable price.
Monki: IT aims at targeting at young women but sells fashion clothes for all ages. The
products of this brand are found inspiring and innovative in today’s era.
People:
In order to get success in the market, H&M has places its customers on the first priority.
Customers must be served first to achieve success. Customers should be satisfied and they
should be taken into highest consideration. H&M have managed to conduct several training
programs to train their staffs who deals with the customers. They are well trained to act and
behave the customers wants them to behave. The service team needs to be fully aware about
the latest technologies and keeps themselves updated. They should help H&M how to
penetrate the market and gain the maximum profit. If customers will be ill treated or if they
will not be entertained, they will avoid demanding the particular brand and slowly and
gradually the image of the brand will diminish in the market. So, it is vey important to makes
the customers happy and satisfied with the products they buy (Campaign, 2015).
Since H&M aims at focusing on the low price with fashion clothes, it assures to create more
number of happy customers towards it.
Physical Evidence:
Physical evidence is nothing but the way of presenting the goods which are available for sale
purpose. The presentation of goods plays a very vital role because it is the only way a
customer sis attracted towards the product and gives a choice of purchasing it. Majority of
people judge the product by the way they are displayed or the way the shop is arranged. If the
display of the goods is attractive, they will automatically buy the goods. Likewise, they also
make sure to present their staff in a well-mannered. H&M have well trained their staffs so
they are quite representable and well behaved. Since, H&M is providing the online digital
platform, it is also very important that the website looks nice and all the required information
must be presented on the website clearly. Customers who would prefer online shopping must
not find any difficulties in shopping online and should get all the required information on the
website only.

H&M strategies and issues 7
Process:
The process of H&M brand is very simple, realistic and transparent. It basically focuses on
the customer services. The process of the H&M is highly involved in the research and
development. It is also highly involved in the IT team which constantly supports the team and
provides assistance (Ho, 2017). It aims at keeping all the website updated and managed and
focuses on gaining the attention of the maximum customers. The process chain of the H&M
does not involve any middle person because it manufactures the product and sells directly to
the retail outlets. It uses railways and ships for the transportation because it causes minimum
cost as compared to other modes of transportation (Hansson, 2011).
Partnerships:
There are basically two major owners of the brand H&M i.e. foreign owners and Swedish
owners. Foreign owners 23.8%of shares and remaining 76.2% of shares are owned by
Swedish owners. The major shareholders of this brand are The Stefan Person family and
related companies, The Lottie Tham family and related companies, STATE STREET
BANK AND TRUST OMNIBUS, Didner & Gerge Fonder Aktiebolag and many more
(H&M, 2018).
Major issues of marketing mix involved in H&M brand
Although marketing mix is the way of providing a basic and important framework, it is
not enough to work according and gain detailed marketing strategy. Sometimes it creates
several problems. The problem in H&M is found majorly in two aspects. First, marketing
mix requires adjustments in particular business environment and the second one is it is
nothing but more like a backbone instead of blood to the company because it provide
clear and suggestions in more detailed format. From the given above analysis there are
7ps which helps to identify the components of marketing mix of the brand H&M. But it
is again not important that these 7ps will work for every organization in the similar way
i.e. they might not be equally important in different business. For an example, the stock
of inventory is least important in the cosmetic business (Harrison, 2011).
Here in the case of the famous brand H&M, the marketing mix is insufficient in
managing and maintaining interaction with its customers. The interaction with the
customers include contribution to various factors like better product design or better
customer services or better customer satisfaction or better involvement in solving the
queries of the customers. It failed to interact with its customers and the customers were
dissatisfied with the product offered by the brand.

H&M strategies and issues 8
Moreover, H&M has faced a major issue in the advertising technique used by them.it
was a racist advertising campaign which was really offending among the customers and
around the world. It created lots of obstacle and degraded the image of brand in the
minds of customers. While advertising the product, the brand used a young black child
who was wearing a hoodie printed “coolest monkey in the jungle” (Blow, 2018). People
started reacting on it and raised their voice against it. The quote represented that it was
tone deaf and filled with lots of racist undertones which was not totally accepted by the
customers. H&M apologized for it and worked for it to remove the advertising form the
internet. They also worked on proving that it was not done intentionally neither it was
done to focus any racism segments or target any of the color but it didn’t work out. They
were deeply sorry for the product image presented (ABC, 2018).
The other main issue related to the brand was the low price. The customers who are
fashion obsessed and who go for the quality products will definitely not think before
investing more rather than buying the cheap products. H&M offers products at low price
though the products are fashionable. The H&M has huge variety of products sold at a
very reasonable price which are easily affordable by the middle segments of customers.
The major competitors of H&M are Zara and mango. Since they are luxury brand, they
offer products with higher price and higher quality as compare to H&M. customers who
would be given choice between H&M and Zara will but obvious choose Zara because of
the quality they offer. Here, price will be the second priority when it comes to fashion.
Customers today will look for good quality and is happy to pay for it. So, keeping these
things in mind, H&M should aim at focusing on the quality issue because the quality
offered by it is low with low price.
Likewise, other issues involves promotions and advertising. Since, there was a major
issue involved due to racism, the online digital marketing of the brand has been reduced.
The online platform is less preferable by the customers which has already decreased the
sale of the products offered by them through internet. Similarly, H&M has very low
advertising and promotions campaigns involved in it (Pasquarelli, 2018). It promote its
products but needs to work ore on it. It should focus more on the several campaigns and
create more public awareness programs so that customers will be more aware about the
product and will be more inspired to buy the product.

H&M strategies and issues 9
Other issue involved is process issues. H&M uses ocean and railways for the
transportation of its products. Ocean and railways are used as the modes of
transportation because it reduces the cost incurred in the logistics. The cost incurred in
railway and ocean are very low as compared to the cost involved in other means of
transportation. It takes lots of time to get the products delivered via railway and ocean.
The delivery time taken to reach the product from the factory to the retail outlet is very
high which creates issues in the overall process of the brand. The stock will not reach the
destination at the allocate time and will result in low availability of the products as well.
Recommendations
Since, the target customers for the brand is from 18-24 that only represent the young
male and female. It does not target other segments of people. So, it is recommended that
it should start targeting audience of all the ages and start launching the products for all
ages. It should offer products that will be available for kids as well as middle aged
persons.
Other major recommendation is related to price. H&M offers product with low price
which targets middle income people. The people whose income is average will definitely
prefer such brand but what about the people who prefer high quality and happy to pay
high amount for it. The major competitors of H&M are Zara, Mango and Forever 21.
They offer high quality products with high price and most of the people prefer it. But
when it comes to H&M, it offers low price which does not target people with high
income. So, it should start targeting people with higher income and manage in producing
the product with high quality and higher price range.
The modes of transportation involved in H&M are railway and ocean. It takes long
delivery time to reach its products from the factory to the retail outlets. So, in order to
reach product on time, it should start using other modes of transportation as well to
reduce the delivery time.
The above mentioned recommendations if followed can help in building a strong
relationship with its potential customers. It will also help H&M to create a positive
image in the minds of customers and increase the overall sales of the company as well.

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Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded that H&M has successfully maintained its sustainability in the
market as well as in the minds of the customers. Today customers are happy with the
brand and their likes are increasing on daily basis. They have proved themselves in
providing the fashion trends to the customers with a very reasonable price. Moreover one
of the great thing offered by this brand is that it offers the same product and operations
in all of their markets which enables them to provide more sustainable future.

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References
ABC, (2018), H&M issues new apology over 'Coolest monkey in the jungle' hoodie with
black child, viewed on 1st February, 2018. Available on: abc13.com/society/h-m-
apologizes-for-using-black-child-in-slogan-about-monkey/2913043/
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., (2015). Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education.
Bhasin. H, (2017), Marketing mix of H&M – H&M Marketing mix, viewed on 1st February,
2018. Available on: https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-hm/
Biew. K, (2017), H&M Promotion strategy, viewed on 1st February, 2018. Available on:
http://heroinandmoss.blogspot.in/p/h-promotion-strategy.html
Blow. C, (2018), H&M issues apology after using image of black child wearing 'monkey'
hoodie, viewed on 1st February, 2018. Available on: http://www.thejournal.ie/hm-
apology-racist-image-3787769-Jan2018/
Campaign, C.C., (2015). 10 ways H&M is spinning the facts on worker safety.
Campaign, C.C., (2015). Clean Clothes Campaign response to agreement between H&M and
IndustriALL.
H&M group, (2018), investors, viewed on 1st February, 2018. Available on:
https://about.hm.com/en/about-us.html
H&M, (2011), product strategy, viewed on 1st February, 2018. Available on:
http://heroinandmoss.blogspot.in/p/product-strategy.html
Hansson, M., (2011). What impact has a fast fashion strategy on fashion companies supply
chain management?

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Harrison, R.L. and Reilly, T.M., (2011). Mixed methods designs in marketing research.
Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 14(1), pp.7-26.
Ho, D.C., (2014). A case study of H&M’s strategy and practices of corporate environmental
sustainability. In Logistics Operations, Supply Chain Management and Sustainability
(pp. 241-254). Springer, Cham.
Kotabe, M. and Helsen, K., (2014). Global marketing management.
Lu. C, (2014), H&M Supply Chain Strategy - Successful Retail Inventory Control, viewed on
1st February, 2018. Available on: https://www.tradegecko.com/blog/hm-retail-
inventory-control
Mastro. S, (2017), Advertising & Promotion - H&M, viewed on 1st February, 2018.
Available on: https://prezi.com/rnp2bclugxwu/advertising-promotion-hm/
MBAskool, (2017), H&M Marketing Mix, viewed on 1st February, 2018. Available
on:https://www.mbaskool.com/marketing-mix/services/16924-h-and-m.html
Mo, Z., (2015). Internationalization process of fast fashion retailers: evidence of H&M and
Zara. International Journal of Business and Management, 10(3), p.217.
Pasquarelli. A, (2018), H&M apologizes after accusations of racist ad, reviews 'internal
routines', viewed on 1st February, 2018. Available on:
http://www.adageindia.in/marketing/cmo-strategy/hm-apologizes-after-accusations-
of-racist-ad-reviews-internal-routines/articleshow/62420186.cms
Pratap. A, (2017), H&M Marketing Mix – 4P’s, viewed on 1st February, 2018. Available on:
https://www.cheshnotes.com/2017/09/hm-marketing-mix-4ps/
Shen, B., (2014). Sustainable fashion supply chain: Lessons from H&M. Sustainability, 6(9),
pp.6236-6249.

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Zozi, J. and Janicic, R., (2014). CREATIVE MARKETING STRATEGIES H&M VS
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