H&M Seeks To Shutter Cheap Monday Brand

The world’s second biggest fashion retail firm, H&M, is shuttering its independent brand Cheap Monday, the company said on Tuesday (Nov. 27), as reported by Reuters.

The brand had been owned by H&M through its 2008 acquisition of Fabric Scandinavien AB, which was the owner of Cheap Monday.

The Cheap Monday offerings are sold by roughly 3,000 retailers across the globe. In a statement, H&M said the Cheap Monday brand has existed as “a traditional wholesale business model, which is a model that has faced major challenges due to the shift in the industry.” The trend, then, has been one where sales and profits have been pressured, enough so that the company said “the H&M group therefore intends to close down Cheap Monday.”

The closure will be completed by June of 2019, and will impact about 80 employees.

Reuters noted that the trademark Cheap Monday offering is its skinny jeans, alongside store chains that include Weekday and Monki. In addition to the aforementioned global retailer network, Cheap Monday is sold through an online store and online marketplaces that include Asos and Zalando.

Reuters noted that the core H&M brand, “which has struggled to adapt to the online shift in the industry,” still accounts for much of the firm’s business.

Fabric Scandinavien was H&M’s first acquisition a decade ago. The company has since brought other independent chains to market, including COS and Other Stories.

In its Tuesday statement detailing the closure of the Cheap Monday brand and the attendant struggles it faced, H&M stated that “we see very good opportunities and great potential for all of the other brands within new business, which all are developing positively both digitally as well as through physical stores.”