H&M shutters flagship Shanghai store

H&M has shut its flagship Shanghai store, its latest closure in China where consumer demand has slumped amid Covid lockdowns and the fast-fashion retailer has borne the brunt of a backlash against companies that refuse to use Xinjiang cotton.

Although it was open earlier this month, the three-storey building in downtown Shanghai was on Friday boarded up with its H&M signage gone.

Entering the China market in 2007, there were over 500 stores early last year but its website currently only lists 376, including the flagship Shanghai store.

There are not many Chinese consumers have shopped in the shopping malls although Shanghai lifted a strict two-month lockdown already,

Chinese citizens were unsatisfied with H&M and some even would like to receive a public apology from the company due to its letter of allegations of forced labour in the Xinjiang region in 2021.

In the letter, the company had expressed concern over reports of Xinjiang forced labour and said it would no longer source cotton from there.

Major Chinese e-commerce sites such as JD.com and Tmall, remain unavailable for purchasing H&M products.

Other foreign brands such as Nike and Zara, who publicly disavowed Xinjiang cotton also suffered from the boycotts of the Chinese citizens.

Though there are right groups that estimate over a million people, mainly Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, have been detained, suffered abuse and ideological training in recent years in a vast system of camps in China's western Xinjiang region, China denied those accusations.