Zara (retailer)

Zara is a Spanish clothing and accessories retailer based

in Arteixo, Galicia. The company was founded in 1975 by Amancio
Ortega and Rosala Mera. It is the main brand of the Inditex group the
world's largest apparel retailer. The fashion group also owns brands
such as Massimo Dutti, Pull and
Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home, and Uterqe. Zara
as of 2017 manages up to 20 clothing collections a year.
Stores
There are over 2,100 Zara stores located across 88 countries. Zara
usually selects the best located and most expensive real estate
locations in the world to open its flagship stores. Zara has flagship
stores on Fifth Avenue in New York, Oxford Street in London, Calle
Serrano in Madrid, Via del Corso in Rome, Champs-lyses in Paris,
Corso Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, Nevsky Prospect in Saint
Petersburg, GUM in Vladivostok, Shibuya and Ginza in
Tokyo, Myeongdong in Seoul,Phoenix Marketcity in Pune, India and
others.

Products
Zara stores have men's clothing and women's clothing, as well as
children's clothing (Zara Kids). Zara's products are supplied based on
consumer trends. Its highly responsive supply chain ships new
products to stores twice a week. After products are designed, they
take ten to fifteen days to reach the stores. All of the clothing is
processed through the distribution center in Spain. New items are
inspected, sorted, tagged, and loaded into trucks. In most cases, the
clothing is delivered within 48 hours. Zara produces over 450 million
items per year

Manufacturing and distribution

Reportedly, Zara needs just one week to develop a new product and
get it to stores, compared to the six-month industry average, and
launches around 12,000 new designs each year. Zara has a policy of
zero advertising; the company preferred to invest a percentage of
revenues in opening new stores instead

Most of the products Zara sells are manufactured in proximity

countries like Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Morocco. While some
competitors outsource all production to Asia, Zara manufactures its
most fashionable itemshalf of all its merchandiseat a dozen
company-owned factories in Spain and Portugal and Turkey,
particularly in Galicia and northern Portugal and Turkey. Clothes with
a longer shelf life, such as basic T-shirts, are outsourced to low-cost
suppliers, mainly in Asia.

The company can design a new product and have finished goods in
its stores in four to five weeks; it can modify existing items in as little
as two weeks. Shortening the product life cycle means greater
success in meeting consumer preferences. If a design does not sell
well within a week, it is withdrawn from shops, further orders are
canceled and a new design is pursued. Zara monitors customers'
fashion changes. Zara has a range of basic designs that are carried
over from year to year, but some fashion forward designs can stay on
the shelves less than four weeks, which encourages Zara fans to
make repeat visits. An average high-street store in Spain expects
customers to visit three times a year. That goes up to 17 times for
Zara.