We visited H&M and Zara to see which was a better fast-fashion store — and the winner was clear for a key reason

• H&M and Zara are two of the top names in fast fashion.
• Zara's parent company, Inditex, reported a 7% increase in profits in 2017. H&M, on the other hand, has struggled in recent months, with operating profit dropping 62% in the first quarter of 2018.
• Despite the striking difference in how each company is performing, we found that H&M had better deals to offer shoppers and greater variety in the products sold. 

Zara and H&M are in fierce competition with one another to be the best in fast fashion.

But things aren't looking good for H&M. In the first quarter of 2018, operating profit at H&M decreased 62%, following another massive sales drop in the fourth quarter of 2017. Business Insider's Mary Hanbury reported that analysts believe H&M has a brand issue — it's not the cheapest store, and its clothes are not the best quality nor the most fashionable. 

It's also facing the fact that it simply has too much clothing in stock. H&M currently has over $4 billion worth of unsold clothing, and it's rolling out some big technological changes to better streamline its supply chain. 

Zara, on the other hand, has been successful in part because it has found a way to avoid the inventory issue. Brand strategist Martin Roll wrote in March that Zara limits how much of each product is made, controlling inventory and creating artificial scarcity that drives up sales, in addition to offering more fashionable clothing. At the end of the 2017 fiscal year, profits at Inditex were up 7%.

To see which store was better to shop at, we visited neighboring Zara and H&M stores in Jersey City, New Jersey. Here's what we found: 

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H&M was my first stop.

The entire first floor sold women's clothing. Some of the styles at the front of the store were nice ...

... but others missed the mark, like this t-shirt that just read "Saturday" on the front. The selection was very hit or miss — some of the clothes were fashionable, and others were far from it. The quality also hugely varied, with some clothes feeling like they were about to fall apart and others seeming to be of higher quality.