SVT

"“When H&M's purchasers come here, they dictate a price. For a simple bra, it might be 2.50 or 3 dollars. If I cannot meet that price, I do not get the order,” says the factory manager. The Saldana factory has had to lower its prices and sometimes even take a loss in order to receive orders from H&M. "We started sewing for them last year, but this year they have reduced the price by 30 percent. The reason is that they can get garments of the same type for lower prices in other parts of the region. In business, it's the one with the lowest price who gets the order," says the factory manager in the SVT documentary."

"After Lagerfeld's criticism, Madonna's collection is sold in larger editions, although it is still limited. The designer collaborations are not meant to take up more than a small share of H&M's total sales. Instead, it's about marketing that can be worth several billion in terms of media exposure. "H&M is a bit everyday like that, but now it's been spruced up a bit," says a customer to SVT and means that she herself has changed her opinion about H&M through the Madonna collaboration. Once the global stars have attracted customers to the store, H&M can also sell its basic goods, socks, underwear, t-shirts, which have been manufactured long in advance in huge editions with much higher profit margins than the special collections."