The H&M brand is one of the most successful clothing brands and is known all over the world. Clothing from this brand is of high quality, and its price is affordable for almost everyone. Wearing this brand is prestigious among fashionistas and fashionistas in many countries. The creator of H&M is billionaire Stefan Persson. At the beginning of 2015, his fortune was estimated by Forbes at $ 24.2 billion, which makes him one of the 30 richest people in the world.
Hennes & Mauritz is born
In the year of the birth of Stefan Persson (1947), his father Erling started his entrepreneurial career by opening a company called Hennes in Westeros. She was engaged in the production and sale of women’s clothing in the middle-price category. This business idea Erling Persson “spied” in New York – he was struck by the success of local merchants who sold high-quality, but very inexpensive clothes in small shops. In Sweden, expensive boutiques then ruled, and the idea of selling cheap clothes in the simplest stores, it would seem, was doomed to failure. But the significant difference in prices nevertheless played into the hands of the entrepreneur, and his product began to be wildly popular among women who wanted to dress beautifully and at the same time not empty their wallets to a penny.
Erling realized that the business needed to grow further. This is how Hennes stores were opened all over Sweden. In the late 1960s, Erling’s business partner was Maurits Widfors, a former hunting clothing retailer. The company was renamed Hennes & Mauritz, and menswear, bags, and accessories were also added to the product range.
Entering new markets
Meanwhile, the son of Persson Sr. Stefan became a graduate of two universities – Stockholm and Lund. He wanted his father’s business to develop not only in Sweden but all over the world. Erling supported such desires of his son, however, at times he was visited by the thought that this is the peak that he would never climb. As a result, Stefan nevertheless turned out to be more persistent and convinced his father that he needed to start conquering new markets. And the first on the list was England.
1976 saw the opening of the first H&M store in London. Stefan took on the task of attracting visitors to the new store on his own, and he did it in a rather original way. Now, with a slight embarrassment, he recalls how he stood at the entrance to the store and handed out to all visitors musical records with the recordings of the Abba group (a famous Swedish band). Customers liked this free bonus. Stefan kept saying: “Come back in again! I still have a lot of such records ”. Every day the queue at the store became more and more.
Persson Jr., having no entrepreneurial experience at the time, almost independently developed the H&M branches in London to the highest level. Erling, looking at such amazing abilities of his son after a few years put the management of the whole company into his hands. The stores of the H&M chain began to appear in different cities in Europe at a tremendous speed. And after a while on other continents. Since 2000, H&M stores are located in the United States of America, Europe, Canada, Australia, and China.
Conquering the American market was the hardest for Persson. The first New York H&M store appeared in 2000. A lot of monetary resources were spent on its opening, and due to external economic factors, American business expansion was not as active as the entrepreneur would like. Nevertheless, many experts note that no European businessman has yet succeeded in conquering the American market as quickly as Persson did. In its price category, the H&M brand has bypassed almost all competitors.
