Zara is a Spanish apparel retailer based in Arteixoin Galicia, Spain. The company deals in clothing, shoes, swimwear, accessories, beauty, fast fashion, and perfumes. It is the largest company in the Inditex group and is known as the largest apparel retailer in the world.
We all know the success of this brand but not the struggle which “Amancio Ortega” did to make this brand stand like this. Many people do not know what challenges did Amancio faced throughout the rise of Zara.
Zara History
Amancio Ortega was born on the 28th of March 1936 at Busdongodèarbás, Leon, Spain. He was the youngest boy among 4 brothers. His father was a railroad worker and they used to live in a small quarter allotted by the railway, at that time their financial condition was very poor so his mother used to work as a maid. Sometimes they didn't have enough money So that they can buy groceries, so his mother used to get the groceries on credit, but one day when his mom went to Get the groceries, the shopkeeper insulted her and did not give her the groceries.
After knowing this Amancio stopped his studies and started working for a shop named GALA, he used to deliver clothes to the local retail shops, stitch clothes, etc. After that due to his hard work by 1960, he became a senior manager at the same shop. In his free time, he used to take the leftover clothes to his sisters' place and they used to design and enhance the clothes by adding a little bit of style and sell them in the market at cheap prices.
One day he approached few ladies to work with them, at that time they used to manufacture lingerie, babywear, and nightgowns. Slowly more people started joining them and they started expanding them.
In 1963, Amancio started his first family business named Confecciones Goa by investing just 25$. He continued his work and due to his earlier customer satisfaction, he started to get more and more orders. One day he thought that I am working for other people and not for myself.
So in 1975, he opened his first fashion retail store and named it ZORBA but later he changed it to ZARA. Gradually people started buying their clothes and by 1983, he had retail outlets of ZARA scattered all over Spain.
"Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston S. Churchill
The rise of a giant - ZARA
For the International distribution of their clothes, ZARA came in collaboration with the Inditex group and 1988 opened an outlet in Portugal, where they got workers on less wages. In 1989 ZARA had its outlet in the USA, then in France in 1990, Mexico in 1992, Greece, Belgium and Sweden in 1993, Brazil in 2000, Japan and Singapore in 2002, Russia and Malaysia in 2003, China, Morocco, Estonia, Hungary and Romania in 2004, Philippines, Costa Rica, and Indonesia in 2005, South Korea in 2008, India in 2010, Taiwan, South Africa and Australia in 2011, Peru in 2012, and the list went on.
In 2010, ZARA launched its first online boutique, expanded it, and gradually till 2020 it came into use for all of the countries which had their retail stores.
Zara Success Story - Expansion and Strategies
In 2014, ZARA introduced RFID technology in which the clothes have a tag attached to them, this helps the brand to keep track of the products e.g. what design is currently available and what is the stock available, etc. This helps the brand to see what has been sold, what design do we need to make available.
Like this ZARA has an end number of strategies, they observe the current trend and design the products accordingly, ZARA launches more than 20 collections per year and each design is different from the other one. Also, ZARA is known as the fastest apparel manufacturing brand in the world.
ZARA'S Marketing strategies
- Having scarcity on all designs- Zara does not manufacture many pieces of a design, it convinces people to go and buy the products before it gets out of the stock room.
- Having novelty on all designs- Zara launches a wide variety of more than 20 collections per year, and every design is different from the other one.
- Having a deep impact on feedbacks- Zara takes the feedback very much seriously, and believes that the fashion that they create is designed by the customer due to their feedbacks.
- Having stores at a particular location- Unlike other luxury brands who have their stores near the locality where rich people reside, Zara finds the location where all the crowd can approach them.
Zara is a successful international retail brand that started from a Spanish local shop and now is a truly global brand.
Starting from one local store using its strategies, now having more than 2500 outlets scattered all over the world.
