H&M shuts flagship store in Beijing’s Sanlitun district a year after closing Covid-hit Shanghai shop

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Brand to ‘explore new sites in Beijing and other Chinese cities to establish brand new flagship stores’

The closure of H&M’s Sanlitun store comes almost a year after it shut a shop in Shanghai’s Middle Huaihai Road

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The H&M store in Sanlitun. Swire Properties says it is finalising a rental agreement with a new tenant for the site. Photo: VCG

Zhao Ziwen

Published: 10:00pm, 5 Jun 2023Updated: 3:10am, 6 Jun 2023

Swedish fast-fashion brand H&M is closing its iconic store in Beijing’s Sanlitun shopping district on Sunday, after demand failed to bounce back following an end to China’s strict Covid-19 restrictions.

The brand has chosen not to renew its 10-year contract, which expires this year, with landlord Swire Properties. The store, which opened in 2014 and marked a golden era for H&M in China, occupies 1,200 square metres and has shaped Sanlitun’s skyline for nearly a decade.

H&M will, however, “explore new sites in Beijing and other Chinese cities to establish brand new flagship stores”.

“China has always been one of the most important markets for H&M,” the company said in a statement on Monday. “As the digital transformation of retail continues and customer shopping habits change, we will continue to optimise our store portfolio to best match each market.”

The closure of H&M’s Sanlitun store comes almost a year after it shut its flagship store in Shanghai. The store in Shanghai’s Middle Huaihai Road was the brand’s first and once biggest shop in mainland China. The company is, in fact, suffering from a wave of closures in mainland cities such as Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Chongqing.

China’s strict zero-Covid policy might have hurt H&M’s business, but the brand also faced a nationalist backlash last year after it announced that it would stop using cotton sourced from China’s Xinjiang region.

H&M shuts flagship store in Beijing’s Sanlitun district a year after closing Covid-hit Shanghai shop

Brand to ‘explore new sites in Beijing and other Chinese cities to establish brand new flagship stores’ The closure of H&M’s Sanlitun store comes almost a year after it shut a shop in Shanghai’s Middle Huaihai Road

Brand to ‘explore new sites in Beijing and other Chinese cities to establish brand new flagship stores’

The closure of H&M’s Sanlitun store comes almost a year after it shut a shop in Shanghai’s Middle Huaihai Road