H&M opens in Bosnia and Herzegovina

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Mar 25, 2019

H&M is continuing its expansion into new markets and late last week the Swedish fashion retail giant opened its first store in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The new flagship opened in Banja Luka’s new mall Delta Planet, with the company saying that there was a queue of around 1,000 customers ahead of the 4pm opening with some having lined up since early in the morning.

The company also generated extra buzz with 20% discounts on the first day and the first 1,000 shoppers receiving gift cards. The store covers 2,500 square metres, across two floors.

The opening was overseen by the firm’s country manager Claudia Oszwald, who’s also in charge of Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Georgia.

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Although online expansion is a key focus for H&M, the group continues to expand its physical footprint for its basket of brands. It’s still opening flagship stores in existing markets and recently also debuted Monki in Iceland, as well as announcing the arrival of COS and Weekday in that country later this year. Weekday is also debuting in Luxembourg. Meanwhile Arket debuts in Norway this spring and COS recently opened its first Russian store.

But it’s also closing stores where the market conditions are evolving. Earlier this year it announced it was to close six stores in Spain in the first half due to a changing market. The company said it would try to relocate affected staff to other stores.