Consumer Base

Customers of middle or upper class can usually be found inside H&M stores. This is partly due to the value perceptions of the Chinese customers to H&M, which in China is quite high. Although the price of a product might be similar between China and Europe, Chinese people have generally lower income than European, so H&M is regarded quite expensive in China. Both male and female customers are present in H&M, although the presence of female customers is relatively stronger. This might be due to the larger selection of women's clothing that H&M carries or the general awareness of women to fashion.

The general consumers of H&M range from the age of 18-40. H&M itself mostly focus its marketing towards young people between 18-30 years old, with heavy use of young Caucasian models on its billboards. Chinese people consider western people, especially Caucasians, as one that have higher social class, and so they dream to become more westernized in the hopes of attaining a higher social class. The marketers are aware and take advantage of this.

As I have stated before, most customers of H&M are in the middle to middle class. Most of the transactions are done with cash or debit/credit cards. Another trend I have observed in the Chinese consumers is they tend to shop less frequent, but purchase more items when they do go shopping. This trend is less visible with the younger customers as they seem to be frequenting the store more. Another trend I have observed is that there are rarely any customers who come in to shop alone. Most of the customers are couples or group of friends coming in to shop together.