Zara Case Study Essay Example for Free

Zara Case Study EssayFirst of all, Zara is the flagship brand of the Spanish retail group, Inditex SA, owned by the Spanish Amancio Ortega Gaona. Ortega started his c arer in the fashion design field, developing his own designs, hitting upon the base-formula of his Group reproducing popular fashions using less expensive materials in come out to sell high-demand clothing items at lower prices. From manufacturing, Ortega soon turned to retail and opened his first and most successful retail store ZARA in 1975 in A Coruna, Spain, where the Inditex Group is headquartered. Once the crude Ortegas retail format, started to be well received by the public, Zara, and the Inditex Group in general, expanded and opened sensitive stores, first all around the Spain, and then all around the world in 1988 Zara opened its first store abroad, in Portugal. Zara is now present in 72 countries, with more than 1500 Zara stores worldwide. Its vertically integrated structure, where design, production, distribution and retailing are integrated, makes Zara a unique and particular example of successful retail company.Zaras say competition may be its largest threat, due to their wide range of merchandise categories. However, with its unique and innovative strategy, Zara has a competitive advantage on traditional retailers in the apparel labor. Zaras principal competitors are Arcadia Group, The Gap Inc. , Hennes Mauritz (HM), Benetton Group S. p. a. , Vivarte, Gruppo Coin S. p. a. , Kiabi S. A. , La Redoute, Charles Vogele Holding AG, Mango S. A. Zara clothing has two basic product divisions work forces and Womens apparel.Zaras catalogue includes also childrens and for teen-agers clothing (Zara TRF) as well. Zara offers more products and it offers them more often than similar companies about 12000 designs introduced every(prenominal) year, with a shelf life of about 4 weeks, compared with 2000-4000 items of its competitors. Three are the winning formulae that Zara use to reach thes e results Short supply chain lead quantify Zara can quickly indentify the prevalent and winning fashion trend of the moment, in order to quickly produce a response in terms of new style within 2-4 weeks.Lower quantities (in each style) reducing the quantities manufactured in each style and changing the styles every week, people do not knock back the purchase of an item, because they know that it would not be available later. More styles instead of more quantities per style even if a style sells out quickly, there are new styles already ready to replace the older ones.Zara merchandising strategy eschew every collaboration with big name designers and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns Zara focuses instead in choosing highly visible and premium locations for its stores, that are given priority in their interior and exterior design. Today, many companies are looking to Zara as the new industry standard for how to run a retail business, which shows that Zaras business model is becoming the wave of the future.