Week3.Case study--Zara: Taking the Lead in Fast-Fashion

I am going to talk about ZARA, one of the largest international fashion companies, which has built a mature and effective online shop system. It belongs to Inditex, one of the world’s largest distribution groups(zara.com), who also owns brands such as Massimo Dutti. ZARA, as a flagship, is represented in Europe, America, Africa and Asia with 1412 stores in 69 countries, 500 of them in Spain. During 2007 it opened 560 stores across the group.

Medium Zara clothing offers quality trend at the female, teen, men and kids. In this same line comes a housewares brand (Zara Home) began selling online in October 2007.
In the period of 2009 the turnover was of 3.123 million, assuming an increase over the previous period of 3%. (zara background)

Zara’s turnover between 1986-2007

From the datas,it is certain to say that zara has been a leader both online and offline in fashion retailing.In my opinion,there are 2 main aspects that contributed zara’s success.

1.Unique Selling Proposition-fast fashion

Targeting on young consumers, Zara is not selling goods but fashion. 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(BusinessWeek, 4 April 2006).

I went to Zara in the city center of Manchester every week in the past month and I found the clothes changed so quickly that made my desire of purchasing even stronger. The same issue happens in the ZARA ONLINE. If you go to zara.com, you can easily find out the latest product in the plate of new this week. It update the new fashion with new styles and new element every week. It is a period of changing both for the youth and for the world. People are likely to accept new product than ever before, especially for the young person such as me. I don’t really concern about what I need (like I don’t have a cold in winter so I have to buy one) but for what is in fashion and what makes me feel fantastic. Another effect for fast fashion is that the limited time and quantity would largely encourage people to buy the goods. Because if you don’t buy in a certain time of period, the clothe you are interested in would be sold out in a short time and would never be produced again.

2. Logistics:

“Inditex invested €90 million in 2002 to start Plataforma Europa, which exceeds 125,000 square meters (1.3 million square feet) of building surface area and is equipped with the last technologies that are specifically adapted for Inditex's activities. The combined activity of the centers in Zaragoza and Arteixo allows Zara to distribute products sold in more than 990 stores across 63 countries in Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. "(http://www.inditex.com/)

The distribution takes place twice a week and each delivery always includes new models, so that the stores(both online and offline) are constantly refreshing their offer and the delivery from online store to customers is also very effective.

ALL IN ALL, I LOVE ZARA AND ITS FAST FASHION,AND I AM GOING TO FALLOW THE FASHION  THAT ZARA BROUGHT TO US.