Zara is a Spanish clothing retailer known for fast fashion at affordable prices. It has over $14.5 billion in annual sales and 2000+ stores globally. Zara focuses on quick design, local production, and frequent store deliveries to stay on top of trends. It produces small quantities of many styles and uses customer feedback to guide new designs. Zara's success comes from its integrated model of frequent design updates, nearby manufacturing, and twice-weekly store deliveries that keep customers engaged. However, it faces challenges expanding this model internationally due to differences in tastes and a need to tightly control increasingly remote manufacturing.

2. • Spanish based company, Europe’s leading
apparel retailer
• Fast fashion at affordable prices.
• More than $14.5 billion sales and 2000 stores
• 1975, founder Amancio Ortega
FACTS

3. Success factor
• New distribution model
• Focuses on 4 strategic elements

4. 1. Design and production
• Hundreds of designers , thus new styles are
created
• Enforces the speed. Locates half of its production
facilities nearby in Spain , Portugal, and Morocco .
• Small quantity of each collection , willing to
experience occasional shortages to preserve an
image of exclusivity
• Clothes with longer shelf life like T-shirts are
outsourced to lower cost suppliers in Asia and
Turkey

5. 2. Logistics
• Distribution process
• 50% of its production facilities nearby is key to
the success of this model
• New shipments twice a week in every store,
entice customers to visit the stores more
frequently and to make purchase decisions more
quickly
• An average shopper visits a main street store
three times a year, but at ZARA store average 17
trips
• Company sells more products at full price

6. 3. Customers
• Monitoring customers’ changing needs, trends
and tastes
• React to the customer feedback
• Cuts its losses , impact is minimal due to the
small quantities of each style produced

7. 4. Stores
• Does not run advertising campaigns
• Prestigious high traffic locations
• Spends only 0.3% of revenues on building
campaigns

8. Success Mantra:
-Design
-Production
-Distribution

12. “possibly the most
innovative and
devastating retailer in
the word”

13. • Expanded aggressively through-out Europe ,
Asia , the Americas and the Middle East
making sure it honors local tastes in each
region.

14. Challenges
• In United States: Obesity rates are high and
roomy clothes are preferred to the slim fits
and high fashion the company offers.
• Tight control on manufacturing as it expands
throughout the world

15. Would Zara’s model
work for other
retailers? Why or Why
not?

16. What can Zara do to ensure
successful growth around
the world while maintaining
the same level of speed and
instant fashion?

17. Introduction and History about ZARA
Key Success Factors
Advertisement and Branding
Challenges

18. Disclaimer
Created by Sanjali Maheshwari, Welingkar
Institute of Management, Mumbai during a
marketing internship under Professor Sameer
Mathur, IIM Lucknow.