ZARA (retailer)

ZaraZARA is a fashion retailer that has locations worldwide. It was founded in 1975 in Spain and is one of the first known 'fast"fast fashion'" companies, meaning that its products are designed based on runway trends and are produced quickly and in large sums for the general public. The parent company of ZaraZARA is Inditex, which also operates fashion retailers Massimo Dutti and Bershka under its umbrella.There are over 2,200 ZaraZARA stores worldwide in 96ninety-six different countries, and more than 170,000 people work for ZaraZARA's parent company.

ZaraZARA offers clothing and other products at its stores. Clothing is separated into categories for women, men, and kids. Clothing options vary depending on the category, location of the store, and season. Shoppers can find items such as skirts, dresses, swimwear, bags, accessories, shoes, and sweaters.

Zara is a fashion retalierretailer that has locations worldwide. It was founded in 1975 in SpainSpain and is one of the first known 'fast fashion' companies, meaning that its products are designed based on runway trends and are produced quickly and in large sums for the general public. The parent company of Zara is InditexInditex, which also hasoperates fashion retailers Massimo DuttiMassimo Dutti and BershkaBershka under its umbrellaumbrella.There are over 2,200 Zara stores worldwide in 96 different countries and more than 170,000 people work for Zara's parent company.

Zara Landing Page

The company started with distributing clothing specifically for women.

Zara offers clothing and other products at its stores. Clothing is separated into categories for women, men, and kids. Clothing options vary depending on the category, location of the store and season. Shoppers can find items such as skirts, dresses, swimwear, bags, accessories, shoes, and sweaters.

There are also home and beauty sections of the store that are available in the online store but not necessarily in the brick-and-mortar stores. Examples of home and beauty items offered by the chain include furniture, rugs, tableware, fragrances, and makeup.

Zara is a fashion retalier that has locations worldwide. It was founded in 1975 in Spain and is one of the first known 'fast fashion' companies, meaning that its products are designed based on runway trends and are produced quickly and in large sums for the general public. The parent company of Zara is Inditex, which also has fashion retailers Massimo Dutti and Bershka under its umbrella.

The company started with distributing clothing specifically for women.

Zara SA (Spanish: [ˈθaɾa]), stylized as ZARA, is a Spanish apparel retailer based in Arteixo, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. The company specializes in fast fashion, and products include clothing, accessories, shoes, swimwear, beauty, and perfumes. It is the largest company in the Inditex group, the world's largest apparel retailer. Zara as of 2017 manages up to 20 clothing collections a year.

• History

Founded by Amancio Ortega in 1975, Zara is a flagship clothing chain store that is part of Inditex group, the world's largest apparel retailer. Amancio Ortega opened the first Zara store in 1975 in central A Coruña, Galicia, Spain where the company is still based. Ortega initially named the store Zorba after the classic film Zorba the Greek, but after learning there was a bar with the same name two blocks away, the letters were remolded for the sign to say "Zara". It is believed the extra "a" came from an additional set of letters that had been made for the company.[8][9] The first store featured low-priced lookalike products of popular, higher-end clothing fashions. Ortega opened additional stores throughout Spain. During the 1980s, Ortega changed the design, manufacturing, and distribution process to reduce lead times and react to new trends in a quicker way, which he called "instant fashions". The improvements included the use of information technology and groups of designers instead of individuals.

Revenue of the company €18,021 million in 2018.

• Expansion

In 1985, Amancio Ortega set up a parent company for Zara before engaging in global expansion, and in 1988, the company started its international expansion through Porto, Portugal. In 1989, it entered the United States, and then France in 1990. During the 1990s, Zara expanded to Mexico (1992) and Greece, Belgium and Sweden (1993). In the early 2000s, Zara opened its first stores in Brazil (2000); Japan and Singapore (2002); Venezuela, Russia and Malaysia (2003);China,Morocco, Estonia, Hungary and Romania (2004); the Philippines, Costa Rica and Indonesia (2005); South Korea (2008); India (2010); Taiwan, South Africa and Australia (2011); and Peru (2012).

In September 2010, Zara launched its online boutique. The website began in Spain, the UK, Portugal, Italy, Germany and France. In November of that same year, Zara Online extended its service to five more countries: Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Online stores began operating in the United States in 2011, Russia and Canada in 2013, Mexico in 2014, South Korea in 2014, Romania in 2016, India in 2017, Brazil in 2019 and Peru in 2020.

Zara introduced the use of RFID technology in its stores in 2014. The RFID chips are located in the security tags which are removed from clothing when purchased and can be reused. The chip allows the company to quickly take inventory by detecting radio signals from the RFID tags. When an item is sold, the stockroom is immediately notified so that the item can be replaced. An item that is not on the shelf can easily be found with the RFID tag.

In 2015, Zara was ranked #30 on Interbrand's list of best global brands.

In 2019, Zara updated their logo. It was designed by the French agency Baron & Baron.

In 2019, the global fashion business Journal MDS stated that while the textile commerce of the world had gone down by 2.38%, Zara's had risen 2.17%.

In 2019, Chief Executive Persson said the brand is waiting for more acceptable global rent levels to continue its expansion. In Europe, the brand planned to cut the number of retail locations beginning in 2020.

• Products

Zara stores have men's and women's clothing as well as children's clothing (Zara Kids). Zara Home designs are located in European stores. The majority of Zara customers are aged between 18 and about 35. After products are designed, they take 10 to 15 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.

Zara also includes accessories, shoes, swimwear, beauty and perfumes.

In May 2021, Zara launched its first beauty line, ZARA Beauty.

• 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 makes roughly 40,000 designs of which around 12,000 new designs are carefully selected and produced each year. Zara has a policy of zero advertising; the company preferred to invest a percentage of revenues in opening new stores instead.

Zara set up its own factory in La Coruña (a city known for its textile industry) in 1980 and upgraded to reverse milk-run-type production and distribution facilities in 1990. This approach, designed by Toyota Motor Corp., was called the just-in-time (JIT) system. It enabled the company to establish a business model that allows self-containment throughout the stages of materials, manufacture, product completion, and distribution to stores worldwide within just a few days.

Most of the products Zara sells are manufactured in Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Morocco, Bangladesh and more recently - Armenia . While some competitors outsource all production to Asia, Zara manufactures its most fashionable items – half of all its merchandise – at a dozen company-owned factories in Spain (particularly in Galicia), Portugal (northern part) 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.

As a result of increasing competitive pressures from the online shopping market, Zara is shifting its focus onto online as well, and will consequently open fewer but larger stores in the future.

• Non-toxic clothing

In 2011, Greenpeace started a dialog with Zara to ban toxics from the clothing production.Greenpeace published its "Toxic threads: the big fashion stitch-up" report in November 2012 as part of its Detox Campaign identifying companies that use toxic substances in their manufacturing processes. Nine days after the report was published, Zara committed to eradicating all releases of hazardous chemicals throughout its entire supply chain and products by 2020. Zara became the biggest retailer in the world to raise awareness for the Detox Campaign, and switched to a fully toxic-free production.

• Stores

There are 2259 Zara stores in 96 countries.

In early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ZARA stores worldwide had closed temporarily due to restrictions. However, in April 2020, ZARA owner ramped up shipment to Asia as China ended lockdown after 76 days.

Also goods are sold through a special Zara app for IOS and Android.