H&M Review: Is Legit or Scam? 2024

What is H&M?

H&M (Hennes & Mauritz AB) is a fast fashion retail store. The store brings you all the trending fashion styles. H&M is an acronym for Hennes & Mauritz AB, a Swedish multinational clothing retail company. H&M is virtually ageless. It was started in 1947 by Erling Persson. It took off as an exclusive women fashion shop called Hennes (which means “hers” in Swedish). A menswear was added in 1968, and they rebranded as Hennes & Mauritz.

H&M was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1974. In 1998 the company took its business online with the launch of www.hm.com.

Backed by decades of operation, H&M has increased its product range to include kids wear and home furnishings. They have about 4,800 stores in over 70 markets around the world. This include the Americas, Europe, Oceania, Asia (including the Middle East) and Africa. Their scale of operation suggest that when penguins develop a fashion sense, H&M will have stores in Antartica.

H&M (Hennes & Mauritz AB) is an online fast fashion retail store with a focus on providing the latest fashion styles. They say their business concept is not just to offer fashion, but to offer quality fashion at the best prices.

H&M is legit. It is not a scam because customers receive their ordered items from the store. And there is no credit card details theft report about the store. But do they deliver quality? 

What is promised is the latest fashion styles, top quality at that, and at affordable prices. Is this just advert speak, or does H&M deliver on their promise?

This HM review will x-ray H&M (and examine their offerings, policies, features etc) in order to provide the information that will help you answer the question such as if “is hm legit?” “is H&M Scam?” or whether they are legit.

H&M Review at a Glance

• Established in 1947, and started online operations in 1998
• A legit fashion retailer, registered in Sweden, and listed in the Swedish Stock Exchange
• A true one stop fashion shop for the whole family, as they offer men’s wear, women’s wear, kids’ wears, and home furnishings
• Has about 4,800 stores in over 70 markets around the world
• Offers unbelievably low prices
• Offers free shipping in certain markets
• Customer support available via email, live chat and telephone
• Mobile optimized website; iOS and Android apps available

Is H and M legit?

H and M (HM) is legit  and not a scam. There are different scam artists in the internet who scam people of their hard earned money. Interestingly, one of the “tested and trusted” methods used by these scammers is online stores, where unsuspecting customers pay money for products that are never delivered. Therefore, before purchasing anything online, it is important to consider whether the online store is legit, or just another scam front.

There are different ways of establishing the legitimacy of an online retailer, and we will put H&M through three of these tests – test of time, legal recognition and physical existence.

• Test of time: Usually, scam houses are short lived. After ripping off a few customers, the light is shone on them, and with such exposure, they close up and go into hiding. H&M, on the other hand, started operation in 1947, which means that they’ve been in the business for over 70 years. Suffice it to say that no scam store can operate for that long a time.
• Legal recognition: By far the best proof of a company’s legitimacy is recognition by a competent jurisdiction, via a license to operate. That is why scam companies fake company registration certificates. In this regard, H&M is a company duly registered in Bolagsverket/ Swedish Companies Registration Office as Hennes & Mauritz AB (company registration number: 556042-7220), with registered headquarters in Mäster Samuelsgatan 46A, 106 38 Stockholm, Sweden.

Also, H&M got listed in the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 1974, and they still have their stocks being traded on the floor till date. Suffice it to say that scam company do not go public, by being listed in stock exchanges.

• Physical Existence: Online scam stores have only a virtual existence. There’s usually no production center, or warehouse, or stores; and thus, no products to be delivered when orders are placed. However, a legit retail store will have a physical existence. In this regard, H&M checks the box. With almost 5,000 stores, you’ll find a H&M store stocked with products in virtually every major city of the world.

With over 7 decades of seamless operation, being a registered company listed in a stock exchange, and having hundreds of stores worldwide, there’s no doubt that H&M is a legit online fashion retailer.

Is H&M safe?

H&M is safe. When you create an account and order items from an online retail store, you share personal information (such as your name, mailing address etc) as well as sensitive details (such as credit card information). It’s a no-brainer that these information should be secured, and prevented from falling into the wrong hands.

In this regard, H&M has taken technical and organizational measures to protect your data from loss, manipulation, unauthorized access, etc.

Organizationally, they will not share your information to third parties, except it is necessary to fulfill a transaction, complete a service, for administrative purposes, or required by law.

Technically, they adopt standard security technologies to ensure the protection of data in their systems. Specifically, they use SSL (Secure Socket Layer), which creates a secure link between buyer and seller, encrypts all buyers’ information, and route it through the secure link; thereby ensuring that external thrid parties cannot capture and decipher buyers personal information and payment details.

Features

Different Markets

H&M is one big company that operates globally. To serve their customers better in different locations, they divide their operations into different markets such as H&M United States, H&M Germany, H&M France, H&M China, H&M South Africa and more.

When you access their site for the first time, you’ll be asked to choose a market; and you’ll be subsequently redirected to that market anytime you try to access H&M.

What you get with this arrangement is personalized service. Thus, anytime you access the H&M site, you’re redirected to the appropriate region specific market, and there’s no risk of getting generic information that may not be applicable to you by virtue of you location.

Optimized for mobile

The website of a fashion store should be compatible with the small screens of mobile devices and tablets. It’s a no-brainer; most people do their product search (and eventual shopping) on the mobile devices.

Thankfully, the website of H&M is compatible with all mobile operating systems and platforms. The website opens well on Android, iOS, Windows phone, Blackberry, and other mobile platforms. Once you type the URL into a web browser, you’ll be redirected to the mobile site. You’ll be able to browse and shop the latest fashion, follow your order status, check your balance, and do whatever else you can when accessing the website from a desktop device.

Mobile apps

H&M is one fashion store that has invested in the development of mobile apps to make shopping even easier for heir customers. They have both Android and iOS apps.

With these apps downloaded and installed on your devices, accessing the fashion store to browse and shop the latest fashion is just one click away. However, the biggest draw for shopping with the mobile app instead of shopping from the site is that the app keeps you up-to-date with both latest additions and promos. By using push notifications, the apps gives you instant alerts about offers and events. With this, there’s no way you’ll miss any special promos.

Being a global company serving a global market, the apps are available in English and over 20 other international languages that includes German,  French, Italian, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and more.

You might have a problem with the iOS app as it is not light weight. It is a heavy 113.2MB file, but the Android app is just fine at only 8.2MB.

Reviews suggest has H&M has a lot more work to do on the apps as there are just too many complaints about the apps. Some of these include that visual search not working on the Android app, order history disappearing from both apps and more. As a result of this, the app has poor ratings in ther respective stores. The iOS app has a low 2.4 out of five rating on itunes, while the Android app has a more respectable but poor 3.7 out of five rating on play store

Product Description

You’ll agree that it is important to examine an item properly before buying it. In a brick and mortar store, you can physically see, touch, and feel the item; and this will help you in making your “buy decision”. It’s different when buying things online, as the physical product is not before you. A good product description serves to put the product before you, and help you with making your “buy decision”.

Therefore, it’s important for stores to have detailed product description that can help you “see”, “touch”, and “feel” the item.

H&M ticks this all important box. All items in store have detailed product description, fully describing it including dimensions and composition. This comes complete with images from different angles including on-model ones. With this, you are able to make a thorough assessment of the product, and ensure that what you order is the right item for you.

Ethical Practice and Corporate Social Responsibility

Sustainability is one topic that most customers pay attention too; and you should too if you want our planet to remain after us. Therefore, while we want a fashion provider that gives us the best, it should not be at the cost of our planet. Almost every region retailer has one sustainability program or the other; and H&M is no exception.

One particularly impressive one is the clothing collection program. Instead of simply throwing away your old and abandon clothes (which may disturb the ecosystem) or simply burning them (which will pollute the air, as well as disturb the ecosystem), you can bag them and send them to the nearest H&M store to you. They accept all textile no matter its condition or brand, even old socks, worn-out T-shirts and old sheets.

If the clothing can be worn again, H&M markets them as second hand goods; if the textile can no longer be worn, H&M may convert them to other products such as remake collections or cleaning cloths; and in the worst case, the textiles are recycled as textile fibres, or are used to manufacture products such as damping and insulating materials for the auto industry.

Interestingly, H&M rewards you when you drop off your unwanted clothing. For every bag of textile you drop off, you’ll receive a discount card that you can use to get 15% off hour next in-store purchase. In all, this is a “three in one offer for you”. H&M make you contribute to preserving the planet, H&M helps you dispose your unwanted clothing, and H&M gives you cost saving.

H&M also has different social responsibility programs for positively affecting society. One of such is its partnership with UNICEF, whereby H&M donates 10% of the sales price for every T-shirt to the children’s emergency fund to support the provision of emergency food and healthcare to children.

If you need a fashion retailer that is both passionate about providing exquisite fashion styles, and doing the right thing, you have found one in H&M.

Product Range

Even when buying from brick and mortar stores, many customers will rather visit a big shop where they can get all they want than visit different stores to get different items. This shows the importance of products range in retail purchases; therefore it’s important to examine the product range of any online store under review.

H&M comes across as a one-stop fashion shop for the family, as they offer men’s wear, women’s wear, kids’ wear as well as home furnishing. Each of this range have different categories, and each category hold different types of products.

Women’s wear range

The women fashion range is the pioneer fashion product of H&M; as they started as one store for women’s clothing, in Västerås, Sweden.

They still give the latest fashion and new favourites in women’s clothing. You’ll find everything for every occasion in H&M; from casual day wears, to sharp office wear, to stylish occasion-specific wears, to flattering active wears and bikinis/ lingerie. Some category of women wear are:

Dresses (short, knee-length and long dresses; short sleeved, long sleeved, flounce sleeved, puff sleeved, butterfly sleeved, and sleeveless dresses; lace, satin, and patterned dresses; short dress; V-neck and turtle neck dresses; knitted dresses; fitted dresses; pleated dresses, jacket dresses, chiffon dresses; embroidered dresses, and more).

Jumpsuit (long sleeve and short sleeve jumpsuits; playsuits; off the shoulder jumpsuit; halter neck jumpsuit and more). Tops (cotton T-shirts, vest, printed tops, oversized tops, top with lace details, top with collars, satin scrappy tops, V-necks, boat necked tops, rib-knit jumpers and more).

Shirts and blouse (patterned blouses; cotton, satin, lace and silk shirts and blouses; v-necks and toe collar blouses, fitted shirts, blouses with shocking and more).

Cardigan and jumpers (knitted cardigan, cashmere, polo-necks, and more).

Blazers and waistcoat (long jackets, double breasted jackets, straight cut jackets, fitted jackets and more). Jackets and Coats (Faux fur coat, wool-blend coat, leather jacket, pile coat, biker jacket, padded jacket and more).

Shorts (denim shorts, sweatshirt shorts, viscose shorts, twill shorts, and more).

Trousers and Jeans (cigarette trousers, wide trousers, leather trousers, velvet trousers, leggings, denims,  sweatpants, suit trousers, leggings, joggers, chinos & slacks and more).

Skirt (skirts with fringing, pencil skirts, wrap over skirts and more).

Shoes (leather and suede boots (ankle boots, knee high boots), loafers, court shoes, trainers, and more).

Beauty products (make up, make up brushes nail polish, wash bags and more). Accessories (scarves, hats, belts, bags, and more).  Other clothing categories are swimwear, lingerie, night wears, socks and tights, and maternity wear.

Men’s wear range

H&M also hold all the current and coming men’s clothing collections, drawing inspiration both from the catwalks and the streets.

The categories you’ll find include: T-shirts and vests (polos and round necks, short sleeved and long sleeved, slim fit and regular fit, and more); Shirts (twill shirts, denims, cotton flannel shirts and more). Others are Hoodies & Sweatshirts, Cardigans & Jumpers, Blazers & Suits, Jackets & Coats, Shorts, Trousers, Jeans, Swimwear, Underwear, Shoes (boots, trainers and more), Socks, and Accessories (hats, bags, belts, gloves, scarves, back packs, braces and bow ties, sunglasses, and more).

Kids wear range

In H&M, you’ll find adorable clothes for newborns, babies, toddlers and teens. The kids wear are divided into age categories such as 0 – 9 months, baby girl/ boy 4m – 4yrs, boys/ girls 1.5yrs – 10yrs, and boys/ girls 8yrs – 14yrs.

Baby wears include tops, bottoms, body suits and all-in-ones, and accessories (hats, tights, socks, moccasins, mittens etc). For older kids and teens, you’ll find different types of Jumpers & Cardigans, Tops & T-shirts, Blazers & Waistcoats, Shirts, Blouses, Dresses & Skirts, Outdoor Clothing, Trousers, Leggings, Jeans, Shoes, Accessories, Nightwear, Underwear, Socks, Swimwear, Shorts, Sportswear, Fancy Dress, Dance Wear, Cartoons & Comics, Occasion Wear, and School Uniforms.

Home Furnishing

Here, you’ll find products that will enliven every room in your home, be it the living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, or kids room.

Some of the items include cushions, bed linen, towels, christmas decorations, bathmats, shower curtains, storage items, blankets, curtains, decorations, candles & candleholders, glassware, kitchenware, tea towels, table runners, napkins, porcelain, aprons, rugs, tablecloths, furniture, lighting, and giftwraps.

Prices and Promotions

Price

Price is one of the most significant factor that drives purchases. You will not want to break your wallet to look good. Therefore, you’ll have to consider the prices of products in any online fashion store that you’re looking at.

H&M says that their business concept is to offer fashion and quality at the best price. If you’ve checked customer online review, you’ll find that customers hail H&M prices as excellent. Many of the dresses and products at hm.com are at unbelievably low prices. You’ll find a host of gorgeous dresses, even maxi dresses, costing $30 or under. You’ll also find cute tops below $10, as well as exquisite jeans (for both men and women) under $25.

Promotions

Stores, whether brick and mortar stores or online stores, offer some form of inducement to to drive sales. H&M is no exception, as they offer different promotion from time to time.

This should interest you because the promotions will enable you get items gor free and/ or get them for less than their full prices.

At this time of writing, there were some exciting promos running. One was an exclusive offer to sign up for their newsletter and get 25% off the cost of any one item of choice with your next online purchase. To put icing on the cake, the offer included free delivery of the order. Another promo offer to give you 20% off every order of $60 or more from the kids department. Again, the offer include free shipping of the order.

Shipping

Many online shoppers abandon their carts at checkout; and one of the reasons they cite is unexpected shipping cost. This shows that shipping cost can turn your expenditure on products from acceptable to unacceptable. Therefore, it’s important to examine shipping policies when looking at online stores.

For simplicity, some stores offer free shipping while others charge a shipping rate. Needless to say, free shipping is a major motivator for online shoppers, as customers like spending the least possible to get their products. Another important shipping consideration is how long it’ll take for the items to be delivered. This is also important because, you won’t want it to take forever for you to get your items.

In this regard, it’s important to remember that H&M divides their global operation into different markets in order to be able to better serve specific regions. Thus, the shipping policy (shipping cost, delivery options and times) differs in these markets.

We’ll show this with the US market that serve most of the North American region, an the South African market that serves most of the African region.

For the US market, there are two delivery options – standard delivery and next day delivery. Standard delivery takes 3 – 5 business days and cost $5.99. The next day delivery cost $24.99, and it is everything it’s name suggest; all orders placed in weekdays are delivered the very next day, but orders placed in weekends will take 2 days.

Also, if you’re in the US customers, you can get free shipping. The catch is that your order has to be up to $40 to qualify, and it’ll take 5 – 7 business days to get to you. One impressive thing about the free shipping offer is that you d not have to break the bank to get it. The amount you have to spend to qualify for free shipping in H&M is one of the lowest in the industry. The industry average is: spend $50+ to get free shipping. By offering you free shipping with orders up to $40, H&M impressively beats the industry average by up to $10.

Now to the South African market; there is no offer of free shipping. However, don’t write this off as a con just yet, as the shipping policy still make for good reading.

There’s still the choice of choosing between standard delivery and Next Day delivery. Only in this market, standard delivery takes 2 to 3 working days. However, there’s a marked difference in cost. Standard delivery cost £3.99, while the next day delivery is £5.99. With the standard delivery, you can use “Pick up in store” arrangement. It allows you to select a close H&M store that the orders will be delivered to; then you can visit the store to pick them up. They also offer a Nominated Delivery option which cost £7.99. This option allows you to pick a home delivery date and time.

Though the normal free shipping offers is absent, you can still get free delivery. If you’re a H&M club member, you get free standard delivery and free pick up in store delivery. You can still get free delivery without being a club member; but it’ll have to be a pick in store delivery, and the order have to be £20.

You’ll notice that, within each market H&M uses flat rate shipping, where every customer is charged the same amount for shipping, regardless of what is ordered. This could motivate more spending, as the size of the parcel will not affect shipping cost.

Returns Policy

You’ll agree that it will be frustrating to order something online, but on receiving the order the item does not meet certain expectations you had of it. There are many reasons that could cause that. But whatever the reasons, you’ll agree that being stuck with a clothing material that you do not like from day one, is not the best of experiences. Therefore, when shopping online, it’s important to consider whether the shop has a return policy, that allows customers return items they do not like and get refunded.

Thankfully, H&M offers returns. Their returns policy states that you can return item(s) within 30 day of receiving delivery, without giving any reason.

You can return items to H&M provided that:

• They have not been damaged or soiled
• They have not been worn or washed
• All labels and tags are still attached

However, there are certain items that cannot be returned for health and hygiene reasons, these includes cosmetics, pierced jewellery, underwear, and swimwear bottoms.

If you decide to return any item, included in your package is a returns form which you will use in making the return. Fill the return form, and put it together with the item in the parcel. If you’re in the UK, there are a couple of free returns option that you can use, including Hermes courier, Hermes parcel shop, and Royal mail. For many others, the returns label is pre-paid and pre-addressed, and the flat return shipping fee ($5.99 in almost every case) will automatically be deducted from your refund.

Alternatively, you can choose to make your returns to a H&M store closest to you. One advantage of returns in store is that they are free. However, there are some items that cannot be returned to a H&M store, this include missing and/or incorrect items, as well as furniture and lighting.

H&M will fund you using the same payment method you used for the purchase. You might have to wait for up to 14 days after the items are returned for you to get the refund.

Interestingly, H&M allows exchanges. You can exchange an item for another up to the amount of the returned item(s), but that has to be done in store, and only when the original purchase was made by credit/debit card, gift card or a combination of the two. If the exchange exceed the amount of the returns items, you’ll have to pay the difference.

This is one thing that scores points for H&M because many online fashion stores do not allow exchanges. With these no-exchange stores, getting another item is a long process that does not make for good buying experience; you’ll have to return the original order, get refunded, and place a fresh order.

Payment Methods

You won’t want to see a wonderful item, only to learn at checkout that the store does not support any banking options available for use in your location. Therefore, it’s important to consider the payment options that an online store supports.

The ideal online store should support a lot of payment options, so everyone from everywhere can easily find one for use in making payment. In this regard, H&M check another box.

They accept PayPal and credit/ debit cards (with MasterCard or Visa symbol) as well as Alipay, bank transfers, and China Union Pay. You can also pay using their gift cards (both physical gift cards and e-gift cards).

To use debit card or gift card in hm.com, you must be at least 16 years old; but for every other payment method, you must be at least 18 years old.

That said, the payment methods supported by H&M means that you should not have problems with finding one for making your payment no matter where you are buying from. However, e-wallets such as Skrill and Neteller are very popular for making online payments, and its a shame that these options are not supported. Also, cryptocurrencies (such as bitcoin) are becoming increasingly popular, and are touted as successor to fiat money; but these options are also not supported by H&M.

Customer Support

There might be need to contact the company, therefore it’s important to consider the channels that the company provides for reaching them, as well as the responsiveness of these channels.

First, H&M provides an extensive Q&A section that holds answers to most of the questions that customers might have.

To directly contact a customer support rep of H&M, you can use an email service, a live chat, a telephone service, as well as social media support.

H&M responds to all email submissions within 24 hours. This is okay considering that some platforms can keep you waiting for up to 48 hours. However, if you’ll rather have instant feedback; you can use live chat or telephone. They provide toll free lines (855-466-7467); so you don’t have to worry about charges when contacting them.

H&M also have a strong social media presence; and they give support through their Twitter and Facebook handles.

I liked

• Almost 5000 physical stores world wide
• Extensive product range that includes womens wear, men’s wear, kids’ wear, and home furnishings
• You do not have to break the bank to get free shipping in markets where it’s offered (US free shipping is for $40+ orders)
• Possible to return items and get a refund
• Allow exchange of one product for another
• Customer support available through live chat and telephone

I didn’t like

• No free shipping in certain markets

Summary

H&M gives you every reason for you to make them your store. From being legit and safe, to being passionate about providing you with the latest fashion styles, to being passionate about positively affecting society and the environment.

There’s is a humongous variety of fashion product for women, men and kids, including home furnishing; and these are offered at very reasonable prices. The company has a global reach with stores worldwide; and they strategically divide their operation such that specific regions are better served.

Do you have any experience with HM? If yes, kindly use the review section below to give us your HM ratings and also a brief HM review.