H&M launched its first online store in Sweden in 1998.
The launch marked H&M’s move from physical retail and mail-order commerce into internet shopping. The company used the domain hm.com, which had been registered in 1997, and Sweden served as its first online market. This made the retailer an early fashion-chain participant in commercial e-commerce.
The timing can be confused with later digital expansion. H&M’s first online operation was not the same as its first online launch in every country. The company expanded its web shopping service across additional European markets over subsequent years, with a major expansion of online and catalogue sales beginning in the Netherlands in 2006.
The broader company history also contains several nearby dates that can mislead quiz-takers. H&M opened its first store outside Scandinavia in London in 1976, opened its first United States store in New York in 2000, and later extended online shopping to many more markets. Thus, 1998 specifically identifies the beginning of H&M’s online retail presence, not its American expansion or its later international web rollout.