Zara, one of the most established brands of the fast-orientated global fashion industry, has flipped the consumer shopping experience on its head for millions. The reclusive founder of Zara, Amancio Ortega, now 89, wasn’t always such a mystery. What started as a small family operation has grown to the world’s second largest spirits brand, with global presence in 97 countries. Under CEO Oscar Garcia Maceiras, the company turned to an unexpected ally to help them take an innovative path forward. This strategy has made it highly adaptable to never-ending market shifts.
The idea for Zara’s new collections can come from many places, including the latest trends and what consumers want right now. Through production, this brand displays the most adaptability to pivot. Mixing high-volume, basic fashion staples produced in places like Vietnam and Bangladesh with lower-volume production runs done in-house — literally, in the company’s Barcelona headquarters — on-demand. The company possesses and operates seven local factories. This arrangement provides Zara the flexibility to make last-minute production decisions using up-to-the-minute data.
With a home team of 350 designers from 40 nationalities, Zara is dedicated to diversity and creativity. To do this, the brand draws from a deep supply chain network of 1,800 suppliers around the world. This guarantee provides a consistent stream of materials and resources. Zara’s vertically-integrated supply chain is the single most important competitive advantage in all of fashion retailing. Consequently, they don’t need to depend on deep price cuts. Rather, the company saves its deep discounts for just twice a year, when they run their limited-time sales events.
Zara’s bottom-line-killing operational inefficiencies are offset, but not totally erased, by their extremely well-placed distribution centers in Spain and the Netherlands. Each item of clothing is individually packaged at these hubs. From thereon, it is shipped out immediately to retailers worldwide, providing the quickest turnaround. It’s the company’s product managers who are the key to making this happen. They’re constantly plugged into real-time sales data and customer feedback that informs what their seasonal collections look like.
Designer Oscar Garcia Maceiras reflects on the need to be agile and creative in this world of fast fashion. He adds, “Remember that diversification is very important to us. We shoot in close to 50 separate, diverse markets. Together with our non-exclusive suppliers, we shift direction and change gears quickly. His perspective is a perfect embodiment of Zara’s focus on speed to market, without sacrificing quality.
Additionally, Garcia Maceiras points out the importance of finding a balance between affordability and quality. And naturally, we’re focused on delivering our customers our products at the lowest possible delivered cost. For us, it’s critical to provide customers fashion that should be inspirational, with quality, creativity and sustainable,” he explains. This philosophy strikes a chord with consumers who want style with substance in their closet.
Despite its success, Zara must navigate a fashion world with a bird’s eye view, where trends emerge and fade overnight, as well as cut-throat competition. William Woods, a research analyst at eMarketer, points to one large headwind facing Inditex. The company will need to continue to prove their relevance in a fashion landscape that is faster and cheaper. To mitigate this concern, Zara trusts its data analysis to provide the correct insights to make design decisions with complete confidence.
The creative process at Zara, as with most Inditex brands, is notoriously fluid and intuitive. As designer Mehdi Sousanne reminds, in creation, there are no rules. He feels that inspiration is a creative spark that can light up from anywhere, and at any time. This creative strategy helps Zara save time and stay on the cutting edge of fashions, as well as respond to customers’ needs.
Our delight at seeing designs developed and brought to life as prototypes is tangible within Zara’s design team. And when you sell out?” Designer Mar Marcote sums up the thrill perfectly, “You feel good when you complete an item and it’s beautiful. Zara’s new mission is not just dreaming up very stylish clothes. At its core, it is meant to create emotional bonds with consumers.