Last week, the world's second largest clothing brand said it was stuck with $4.3 billion pile of unsold shirts, dresses and accessories globally.For stores opened more than a year ago, sales have been flat or declined by around 20% as the initial euphoria for the brand tapered off and newer stores opened in the vicinity, say executives of half a dozen prominent malls that have revenue-sharing agreement with H&M. “If the fashion anchor you bring in on relaxed terms hoping it will help the mall grow but starts de-growing instead, it is a big concern,” said a top mall executive in Mumbai that has H&M as an anchor store. He asked not to be named.Some are working on tweaking store sizes. For instance, DLF, the owner of Mall of India in Noida have asked H&M to slash its store size by a fourth, say sources.Janne Einola, country manager for H&M in India, denied it. Few malls even paid upfront for fit-outs for the stores.

Source: Economic Times April 07, 2018 05:48 UTC