Online shopping with H&M

The brand has also launched an ‘inspiration gallery’ on its website, showcasing pictures from fashion fans all over the world, who can submit their photos via social media, using the hashtag #HMxME with a new e-commerce site and mobile application, aimed specifically at its U.S. customers and equipped with visual search and other new capabilities, according to H&M.

The action comes weeks after H&M was pronounced the most popular fashion brand on the web, according to internet search data compiled by SEMrush. SEMrush’s findings, based on Google searches worldwide between June 2017 and June 2018, said that the Swedish retailer was the most searched for fashion brand online.

As new retailer websites and mobile apps go, H&M is at least putting up a good show, adopting fresh capabilities that create bridges between its in-store and digital shopping experiences. Scan & Find, for example, connects shoppers in-store who can’t find the correct size or are in need of other information to the retailer’s new website by simply scanning the price tag. H&M is also planning another new feature for fall release — “find in store” — that will help shoppers locate specific items in the nearest H&M physical store location.

Shoppers who already have the old H&M mobile app need to get rid of it and download the new one. Often, features like this are added to mobile apps through periodic app updates, which many smartphones users set to download automatically. Perhaps H&M’s revamp is so comprehensive that introducing a new app made more sense, but requiring users to take action also gives them a chance to ask themselves if they are using the app often enough to keep it.

Fashion retailer H&M is rolling out other new features that include: payment via PayPal; Scan & Find to help shoppers find items that might be out of stock in stores; Rate and Review for shopper product reviews; free return to stores; live chat; new shipping options and the #HMxME social gallery for style inspiration.