H&M goes online, and kills the user experience by crude cross-selling

E-commerce fashion geeks might be aware that H&M has just opened up to online shopping in the UK. Following success in Sweden, a country obsessed with fashion and fashion blogs, I bet you H&M HQ couldn't wait to test the waters in the UK. This afternoon on I headed out to H&M's UK site and here are some quick thoughts.

Ladies landing page
Landing page features the promotion of a red top. Curiously there is no CTA and the only link is the price, so far so confusing. What I do like though is the super strong use of imagery against white background. It's very H&M and follows their style template for billboard advertising.


Product selection
Eager to check out the offering of ladies clothes, I click 'Ladies' in the top nav and a left hand side nav column appears, 'dresses' selected. Having found a dress for £19.99 I click on the image and see a light-box (which doesn't dim the background) and - this is a problem - see the individual pieces which make up the product image I clicked on. In terms of usability, this is really bad. Cross-selling benefits aside, I clicked on 'Dresses', saw header indicating that yes indeed I am in the right category, but now see a mix of garments?

Lesson: If a user has selected product type by sub-nav, selected a garment within that category, then user should see a product page 100% focused on that garment.


After a bit of confusion, I click on the dress and get taken to check-out. Fine.
I decide to confirm shopping bag and expect to start the login and payment process. But instead, H&M display a light-box with seemingly completely unrelated products such as place mats.


I love H&M dearly, being Swedish means it's as much a part of your national identity as Volvo and IKEA. Therefore it actually hurts critising them. But I don't like it when companies overcomplicate fairly simple actions. If a user is interested in a dress, then let the user see the relevant information and make it easy to buy. Let's hope that H&M sort out these irritation moments so it become a joy and ease to click away and make some purchases!