Zara is the flagship chain store of Inditex Group owned by Spanish tycoon Amancio Ortega. Zara is the most internationalized of Inditex’s chains. The group is headquartered in A Coruna, Spain, where the first Zara store opened in 1975. As of August 2009, there are more than 1,500 Zara stores around the world. It is claimed that Zara needs just two weeks to develop a new product and get it to stores, compared with a six-month industry average, and launches around 10,000 new designs each year. Zara has resisted the industry-wide trend towards transferring fast fashion production to low-cost countries. While it spent little on ads, it spent heavily on stores. Zara is a vertically integrated retailer. Unlike similar apparel retailers, Zara controls most of the steps on the supply-chain: It designs, produces, and distributes itself. The business system that had resulted was particularly distinctive in that Zara manufactured its most fashion sensitive products internally. Zara did not produce "classics", clothes that would always be in style. In fact, the company intended its clothes to have fairly short life spans, both within stores and in customers' closets.
ZARA’S CUSTOMER AND PRODUCT OFFER
Zara’s Customer Segment:
LOW COST FASHION FOR THE 16 TO 24 YEAR OLDS
LOW COST
FASHION
Get it approximately right
Respond to what customers want – create a demand chain
Eliminate creative design
Copy trendy fashion fast
Fast-response supply chain including design
Create a store experience Finalise design knowing material supply
constraint
Create a network/brand
Optimise the supply process for speed and cost
Manage follow-up (next batch) and customer
flows
Zara’s Product Offer
Product Offer
Supply Process
High customization
Low volume
High unit margin
High quality
High standardization
High volume
Low unit margin
Low quality
Flexible Process
High fashion: Out of price
Rigid Process
ZARA
M&S: Out of Fashion
ZARA’S KEY...
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