While some clothing retailers may be forced to raise clothing prices due to production costs next year, H&M is vowing to do the opposite.
Vogue Daily is reporting that H&M, which already carries clothing fairly inexpensive clothing, will begin lowering prices, starting with their fall line.
Jennifer Uglialoro, the H&M’s PR manager, explained the company’s decision to lower prices:
“This season, we bumped up the fashion and lowered the prices even more. It’s the same business concept we’ve had for over 60 years, but this season we’re focused even more on a lower price. We’re very cost-conscious; for fall you’ll be seeing trench coats for $20.”
In addition to $20 trenches, stores will also start carrying dresses that cost less than $5. The dress pictured above retails for $4.95 at H&M, a price point which The Cut compared to the cost of a Starbucks frappuccino.
Uglialoro also explained how the company can produce such inexpensive clothes, while other retailers are raising their prices:
“We have over 2,000 stores in 37 countries. This provides high volume and there is no middleman. We have our own team of over 100 in-house designers and we do all our own production.”
Thoughts?
Do you shop at H&M? If so, have you seen their lower-priced items in stores? Would you buy a dress for $5? As always, be sure to leave a comment and let us know your thoughts!
They need to make an H&M in Miami!!!
That is awwwwesome! TOO bad Texas (Dallas in particular) doesn’t have an H&M ='(
Will this be happening in their UK stores as well? I can’t wait!
I hope these savings carry out into their Canadian stores, I already have to travel to get to H&M, lower prices will make the trip even more worth it.
I knew it! I actually own this dress 🙂
of course i move to texas right when this news comes out 🙁
whoa, this is exciting!! too bad Oklahoma isn’t exactly an H&M hotspot hehe
Like Jennifer said, hopefully canadian stores benefit from lower prices too.
If H&M lowers their prices as much as they said, it may become my new Forever21.
AKA their factory workers are going to be paid even less…
I love H&M, but this rubs my moral conscience the wrong way 🙁
oooooh, YES I would wear a 5$ dress! Like the above mentioned comments, I *hope* the prices carry over to all countries (Canada, please!) because I there IS an H&M in Hamilton, and a BIGGER one twenty minutes over in Burlington!
SQUUUUEEEEAL!
Yay! Considering the fact that the quality of their clothes is far from what it used to be, the prices should go down…
This is SO exciting. I just learned there was an H&M in Raleigh, where I’m going to school, and now this?! Guess who’s going to have an empty wallet and full wardrobe?
That would be so frikking cool. I live in Toronto and there are half a dozen H&M stores around the city, it would be so amazing if I could do my fall wardrobe shopping for a fraction of the cost.
SO EXCITIED!
The quality of clothing at H&M used to be way better, so the prices should be lowered, because the quality is. But I just love shopping at H&M; I can’t wait for the price drop!
i walked in there the other day and was kind of surprised by the prices as i remember them being more expensive! needless to say i bought a cute nautical top and black matelot shorts. i’m not sure if the price change has taken effect but still!
This is good news, but a decision for them to open an online store would be better!
So exciting!!!!
I do agree that H&M quality has definitely dropped significantly over the years, but their clothes have become pretty trendy, so spending $5 on a dress that I’ll probably only wear for a season or two makes sense to me, even if it won’t hold up as well as my more expensive basics. Plus, I like their stores a lot better than Forever 21.
The price drop has been awesome! We have one here in Georgia at the Mall of Georgia, and I bought the dress pictured, except in solid black and not anyone can tell how cheap I got it for! (It’s my unofficial LBD for the time being).
I went over the weekend and saw so many cute dresses and, especially, COATS. I can’t wait for them to drop prices. I already have my list of “to-gets” from H&M, including tweed jackets, trench coats, pea coats, and military jackets!!
$5 dresses! That’s amazing!
It would be even more awesome if they added online shopping 🙁 but it it’s awesome that they’re lowering prices like that!
The quality of the clothing of H&M has always bothered me a bit, but its low price is what makes me give in, same with Forever 21! :0 However, now that the price is even lower (!) it makes me wonder if the quality will be even worse, or the same!
Helll yeah!!
Let’s just hope that doesn’t mean they’re also dropping the quality of the clothing, because H&M is a slight one up from F-21 and I kind of like it that way!
I think there is some pieces that I wouldn’t mine the low cost, especially if they were really cute. A lot of the time I wear dresses only one time for my birthday or a holiday and then never touch them again. I would get my $4.95 worth by wearing them once or twice instead of $15-25 for one or two wears. H&M also has great trendy pieces, which you shouldn’t spend alot of $$$ on anyways and their basics are great. I think this is a good business move. Go H&M!
I went to my closest HM and there was a poster for the five dollar dress but it was nowhere to be found in the store. They didn’t sell out, they just straight up didn’t have it.
Im so excited! I hope the lower prices go into stores very sooN!
awesome!!!
What Jane (#10) and S (#28) said. Low prices are great for us (as consumers), but think how ridiculous $5 for a dress is. Where are they able to cut costs? I’m actually disappointed that CF didn’t mention anything about working conditions, which were brought up in the original article.
I am not convinced there is a way to produce a $5 dress while paying your workers a living wage. In all fairness, though, H&M do try to be open about their practices here:
http://www.hm.com/us/corporateresponsibility/supplychainworkingconditions__supplychain.nhtml
Thanks for all the feedback! I agree with you girls who want an online store– I don’t like driving two hours to the closest H&M, haha.
Calliope Venn: I definitely agree with what you’re saying; I was also wondering how cutting costs was going to effect workers when I first read the article.
I was going to post the link if anyone else was concerned, but you beat me to the punch!
Jane and S: H&M offered an explanation of their working conditions for anyone who was curious about the quality going down after the price drop, which you can check out here: http://tinyurl.com/28q3frl
I’ve never shopped there, but $5 for a dress surprises me. I cannot imagine cutting prices that low without sacrificing either quality or working conditions.
…Wow. Clearly, I’ll be shopping there more this coming season! Hahaha, H&M is taking over my closet…
Almost as soon as I submitted my comment I regretted it. I totally wasn’t even thinking about WHY the dress would be so budget-friendly; I thought perhaps they were one-offs (wear a few times, wear thin, toss), but it’s entirely possible people are not being paid proper wages, or are working in horrible conditions. The real nuisance is, there is hardly ever a straight answer from anyone in the PR department or Head Office about the working conditions. They could be lying through their teeth, unless I’ve seen the conditions myself, I wouldn’t believe it. People will do a lot to save/make more money.
The nearest HM is 2 hours away from me. 🙁
They need online sales AND price drops. Then business will skyrocket!
Wow.
Sadly I am surprised to see so few people wondering how they can possibly be selling a $5 dress. They are not cutting costs, just transferring the costs away from the consumer to other aspects of garment production.
For example to give the consumer those savings they would have to pay the workers less, force the people they buy the materials from to give them a lower price, or focus less on anything they had been doing to reduce environmental impact.
Prices don’t just magically decrease, there is always a cost even though you might not see it.
Want a unique dress for $5? Try Value Village or other thrift stores!
I have a feeling that the quality of their clothes will go down. I’m all for clothes at a good price but I also believe in the good ol’ saying “You get what you pay for.” Bargains are out there, for sure, but when something is that cheap to begin with, it makes me wonder why it’s that cheap.
amazing…can not wait. 🙂
I think it’s really stupid urged you can’t buy their clothes online. In this day and age, an online store is essential. They would make a bunch more money if they opened an online store. We don’t have an H&M in Oklahoma so it’s not like I even have an option to look through what they have and see if I like them. Though I finally got to go into a store when I was in California this summer. But it was only for a few minutes. If they open an online store, their costumers would double. Am I right?
Lowered prices are always a plus! Glad to know H&M is making this move!
i can’t say anything about the work conditions at H&M, but it is possible to have a decent quality item of clothing, even a dress for $5. i once worked at the headquarters of a retail company & most items cost about $3 to make (people had good working conditions – you can’t imagine all of the checklists i had to go through!) & would then sell for something like $20 – that’s a lot of mark-up!
i’m assuming that their current business model is that they hope they’ll sell more of an item to make up for the smaller profit margin.
I’m also somewhat sceptical about the conditions under which these things are made – I recall a documentary about cheap and possibly even child labour in the mid 90s – but I owe most of my clothes to H&M anyway. In my back of the woods (=Scandinavia), the choices are limited… And they have gotten decently stylish in the more classic section (I’m not one for the trendy pieces). But yeah, 5 dollar dresses probably have an uglier story behind them (and I do own one. But I think it was on sale and actually retailed for a whopping 10 euros or so, heh.)
H&M do have an online shop, but not for US customers apparently (but neither do SO many US brands, so I’m not too empathetic =P Give me a Banana Republic online shop that ships to Europe, and we’ll talk, hee. But honestly, it’s really bad of them, you’d think it’d be a huge market. Too much competition maybe?) But most central/northern European countries are catered to by H&M, in case someone in those places didn’t know. http://shop.hm.com/index.jsp
Now I’m just hoping we get Topshop and Banana Republic, GAP and A&E here!! Or that they’d deliver internationally, whichever 😉
m (#44), that’s pretty interesting. I will admit I don’t know much about retail, so it’s good to know that such a price could potentially work with no cost to the workers. I’d still like to investigate more, though.
You’re probably right…H&M look like they’re moving to the Wal-Mart system of retail, where they sell in volume to make up for low margins.
this really makes sense, as I live in london and when i was in new york i noticed the prices were considerably higher, about 25% higher than in the UK.
I was lucky to get to the opening of the new H&M store in Beijing, and I LOVE all of the clothes of the new line! I bought tons of clothes for myself and my brother, and I am greatly satisfied with the quality. It is way better than Forever21. And I was greatly surprised when I saw the prices, because in my country H&M clothes were much more expensive before. Don’t miss trench coats and military jackets, they are worth buying. Can’t wait to wear them 🙂
I smell child labor and mass outsourcing in India and china~
Did you know H&M did previously apologized for cutting up clothing when they don’t sell? Did you the the practice still continues in some parts of US?
Low quality goods at low prices will only bring down US economy in the long run. As US consumer buys more, money doesn’t come back to the American pockets (since it is produced overseas). Eventually goods are going to be way higher than an average American salary since there will be no competition.
Buy it while it last >.>”
Wouldn’t this decrease their clothes quality in the mind of consumers? To be honest, I don’t expect much from a $3 dress or a $20 coat. I love a good sale, but I also love knowing that I payed less for something that is worth more.
will this happen in the uk? cos if its is the that brilliant, i need a trench and i definitley havent got the biggets buget in the world! they should have an online shop though ::) xx
I’ll for sure buy! Meaning that they are $5 entitles everyone to just buy more.. and when you have a product like H&M and Forever21 clothing you have to buy more than normal because its constantly breaking, ripping, losing buttons, or is just super cheap quality. I’ve had shirts come undone after being worn twice, yet that doesn’t stop me from dropping over $300 for schools clothes shopping.
I have a leopard print trench coat that cost only 16.99 from Forever 21:) It was on sale. I like some stuff at H and M too. I got a pink cardigan from there costing only 20 dollars:)
well too bad dont have it in my home town i would def,, would go there and buy whole lots of stuufff!
The closest one is 45 minutes away..but i will gladly make the drive for 5 dollar dresses!