Zara clothing is a brand that has come a long way to become one of the world’s standards in the fashion industry. It was first started in Spain way back in 1975 by a renowned businessman and tycoon by the name Amancio Ortega as part of the Inditex group. Zara clothing stores initially began spreading in Spain and quickly became successful and as of now at least one can find a store in almost every major city of the world. Their brand presence has been felt world worldwide, a factor that has really worked-out in favour of the Zara clothing company’s popularity and profitability. This success has seen it labeled in some publications as the “walmart of the fashion industry”.
To achieve such great feats of success in an industry that is quite sophisticated and volatile, the Zara clothing brand has been developed through a combination of unique strategies. The company has heavily relied on differentiation strategies that have led to the development of unique products. Though it has never been engaged in advertising like most other companies do, it has instead consistently invested in developing its brand items. The company has been credited with its innovation in coming up with new designs within very short spans of time compared to what other companies in the fashion industry would do. Their agility allows them to speed up the design stage and other processes to get their items on the shelves in a timely manner. This strategy amazingly works as their customers would always want to visit the Zara stores more often as they always expect to find something new and fresh to enhance their shopping experience. It would also mean that higher sales volumes are recorded as customers would pick items from stores whenever they find them to avoid the perceived disappointment of never getting the opportunity again.
In addition, the Zara clothing company employs the vertical integration strategy that allows it to do virtually everything for itself. For instance, it does all the designs, production and distribution. This allows a total control of its supply chain and easy tracking of its produced items to ensure the desired quality standards are achieved. The company takes it upon itself to run all its stores around the world and would franchise in countries where the laws do not allow them to invest as foreigners.
Zara clothing is a fast growing brand whose strength has allowed it to develop unique items to meet the most diverse needs in the fashion industry. The brand has managed to set unprecedented fashion trends with nicely packaged products at very reasonable products. Pursuing rare strategies in the fashion industry, perhaps the Zara clothing company recognizes the fact that advertising has always been more like a propaganda thing, and that it’s only the value for the customers’ money that makes the difference.
