H&M Online Shopping: US Finally Gets Web Store

The frustration is over. You can finally order from H&M's online store if you live in the U.S.. After 13 years with a dearth of web-to-door delivery and having to locate a store to buy products, H&M made good on its 2 and 1/2-year-old promise to introduce an online store to the U.S., Forbes reported. The Swedish fashion retailer is joining the ranks with compititors Zara and Uniqlo by offering an online store, lagging considerably behind other clothing stores, Business Week reported.

H&M got everyone's hopes up at the beginning of 2011 when it posted that it would be opening an online shop for the U.S. by the end of the year. The company wrote, "Good morning is an understatement! H&M has decided to have online shopping in the U.S. at the turn of the year 2011/2012! Stay tuned for more," in a Jan. 2011 tweet.

The following months were peppered with intermittent delay announcements in the launching of the shop, which continued to disappoint until Thursday. A key problem in the online store's delay was the collapse of its factory in Bangladesh, killing 1,000 workers and putting pressure on the company to atone for producing its goods in a country where garment workers receive the lowest minimum wage compared to other garment workers in the world.

"This significant milestone fully rounds out H&M's multichannel offering," Daniel Kulle, U.S. president for H&M, told reporters with CBS News.

The 268 H&M stores in the U.S. gross around $503 million a year. It is estimated that e-commerce would bring in sales of $262 billion in revenue in 2013 and increase to $370 billion by 2017 in the U.S., which is primed to bolster H&M's profits. CEO Karl-Johan Persson said earlier this month that he sees great potential in the online market. H&M will continue to launch worldwide online stores into 2014.