ZARA the Story the Strategies the business Why We love it The Success

Zara!  One of the most famous and loved brand. Passionate about fashion or not, Zara has always something that appealed to us: a look for work, for an occasion, one for day, one for all. We are really attracted by this brand that can always surprise us.

Have you ever wondered why we go to Zara much more frequently than any other store? So start to understand what is at the basis of the strategy used by the Spanish giant beloved around the world!   You probably think that is a long post (in fact it is: D it took me a lot to prepare it) but reading it you will find everything you need to know about the strategy of Zara: its history, its success, because we are so attracted by this brand, fashion designers and their strategies. Let’s start!

The History

Amancio Ortega Gaona is the founder and president of the textile group Inditex, Zara clothing brand manufacturer. Ortega opened his first shop in 1975 in La Coruña calling it Zorba (as the film Zorba the greek), in the same neighborhood There was however a bar with the same name of his shop and so, Ortega decided to name it Zara. The company Inditex was instead founded ten years later, in 1985. After this short introduction and history we get to the most interesting part!

Why do we get into  Zara 17 times and only 3 times in the other stores?

It is about their main strategy: Fast Fashion! The strategy of Zara provides small but frequent collections, as opposed to all the other fashion brands the collections that update once per season, Zara renews its products 2 times a week! This strategy has a dual purpose:

1. it encourages customers to come back to the store often.
2. if the shopper wants to buy something, he or she feels that they have to buy it in order to guarantee it won’t sell out. Buy now because it will be gone tomorrow. How many times you have ever be in love with a garment, go back a few days later and not find it more and be regretted not having bought it at that time? I do a lot 😀 Fortunately, the remedy is: shop online keeps longer garments in the collection! This is precisely their goal! Push us to buy right away and make us aware that if we do not then we have lost the boss!

Now, pretty much half of the high-end fashion companies Prada and Louis Vuitton, for example make four to six collections instead of two each year. That’s absolutely because of Zara.

Where the magic happen? The creation of the models

60% of the manufacturing processes are outsourced in countries close to the Zara headquarters in Spain to help achieve a quick turnaround. Zara is fabric driven. Designs are developed with available fabrics and trims. This eliminates waiting for the long and laborious process of fabric formation ( remind that Fast fashion is the key). Design collections are developed by creative teams rather than groups of designers. Creative teams consist of designers, sourcing specialists and product development personal. The designers rely  the collections on those of high fashion and in addition to new models they reproduce the garments that have been purchased over the past collections by changing some detail.  sales and trends of collections are analyzed  and when some product is not sold is immediately replaced with the successful of the same line and will no longer be considered  as model for the next collections. A team that never stops If you think that come out new collections of continuous

Why we love Zara?

This is very simple and anyone who works for Zara knows what moves to use to make us fall in love with each collection! The models of Zara are inspired by the collections of high fashion, but they have a low cost! Basically, the desire of all of us women: D Have always trendy clothes at a moderate price is the fundamental policy of Zara! A team’s task is to study the market, trends and tastes of us customers and then all this information is reported to the designers and after some time the head is ready!

What is its strong point and the secret of his success?

Zara’s strategy is not to have high prices, but it is all a matter of timing! Be quick and make as many collections has many benefits! Not only because a customer enters the store several times  and then buy a lot more often, but because create collections small and frequent means that you better analyze sales trends and if a garment is  not liked you delete immediately from subsequent collections and they focus on what we like best, so Zara has very few remaining!

Its expansion! How many stores are there in the world?

Spain has always been its biggest market, but in 2013 China overtook France and has become the second largest market with the highest number of stores. Some say that Zara prefers to invest in China than in America because, according to analysts in America would have more costs saw the highest number of people using large sizes (in my opinion a point against Zara, circulate this news around is certainly not in favor of its image)

Why are Zara stores near Gucci, Louis Vuitton and other luxury brand?

Prada wants to be next to Gucci, Gucci wants to be next to Prada. The retail strategy for luxury brands is to try to keep as far away from the likes of Zara. Zara’s strategy is to get as close to them as possible. In addition to the frequently collections  this is in my opinion the best strategy adopted by Zara! Open stores only in the center of the city in strategic points near luxury shops  improve the image of Zara who is seen as a store of quality, reliability and affordability! Zara does not spend lots in advertising because it relies entirely on the image of the stores, their decor is reminiscent of luxury shops, shop windows are well kept and the only thing “out of place” when we find it near Prada is just the big price difference between them! They paid $324 million to buy space a in New York a building best known for being the most expensive ever sold in Manhattan. they did one page saying they were opening in The New York Times, but it was not a campaign, it was an announcement, an information. The company does not talk about itself. The idea was that the client was to talk about the company. It was not to say how good it could be. The customer would say that if it was deserved.

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Zara has definitely changed the fashion! all its strategies have itself influenced all the other companies that have had to adapt and try to implement this model of fast fashion to be able to not be considered too far behind the Spanish brand. An excellent business model from which to take example.

We are to the end of the first post dedicated to the world of the fashion business!

As I mentioned in this post,  will be different fashion business topics covered in this new section so stay tuned!
Let me know what you think and if you have suggestions for future topics and requests comment below 🙂