ZARA Retailer Facts-Everything you need to know

Zara retailer facts: Zara is a Spanish multinational retail chain of clothing. The fields in which it specialises are fast fashion, clothes selling, various accessories, shoes and footwear, beauty products and perfumes, and fragrances. The head office of Zara (retailer) is in Arteixo situated in A Coruña in Galicia. It is the largest part of the Inditex group. 

It launched over twenty new product lines per year in 2020.

Zara was started in 1975 by Amancio Ortega.  The first shop was opened in central A Coruña Galicia, Spain where the company has its base still there. Zara was initially called ZORBA. It was named after the classic film Zorba the Greek released in 1964. But there was already a bar with the same name. Then Amancio Ortega rearranged the letters of Zorba to read "Zara". 

At starting it sold similar products of popular, higher-end clothing fashion brands at a low price then more shops were opened in Spain. During the 1980s, the whole process of design, manufacturing, and distribution was changed to reduce lead times and started to react more quickly to new trends. He called it instant fashions. By using information technology and groups of designers instead of individuals.

In 1985, the first shop was opened outside Spain in Porto, Portugal. Then in 1989, Zara entered in the United States, and then in 1990 France. During the 1990s, Zara expanded to Mexico in 1992 and in 1993  Belgium and Sweden. Then in the early 2000s, the first store of Zara was opened in Brazil 2000. In Japan and Singapore was in 2002. In Ireland, Venezuela, Russia and Malaysia in 2003. 

Zara comes to China, Morocco, Estonia, Hungary and Romania in 2004. In the Philippines, Costa Rica and Indonesia in 2005. In South Korea, it was opened in 2008 and in India in 2010. In 2011 it opened in Taiwan, South Africa and Australia and in Peru in 2012.

Zara's online boutique was launched in September 2010. In Jordan, the website was begun. In November of that same year, the service of Zara Online was extended to five more countries which were Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. In 2011 its Online stores began to operate in the United States, Russia and 2013 in Canada, Mexico in 2014, South Korea in 2014, Romania in 2016, India in 2017, Brazil in 2019 and Peru in 2020. 

The use of RFID technology was introduced by Zara in its stores in 2014. The RFID chips are located in the security tags of clothing which are removed from them when purchased and they are reusable. By the use of these chips, the company can quickly take inventory by detecting radio signals coming from these RFID tags. If an item is misplaced not on the shelf can easily be found with the help of RFID tag. 

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

Zara updated their logo in 2019 which was designed by Baron & Baron, a French agency. 

Zara did rise by 2.17% in 2019 when the textile commerce of the world had gone down by 2.38% stated by the global fashion business journal MDS.

The stores of Zara worldwide have men's and women's as well as children's clothing (Zara Kids) too. In European stores, Zara Home Designs are also available. The majority customers of at Zara are aged between 18 and about 35. 

When the products are designed, they take 10 to 15 days to reach all the Zara stores. Through the distribution centre of Spain, all the clothing distribution is processed. All the new items are first inspected then sorted, tagged and finally get loaded into the trucks.  

The clothing is being delivered within the 48 hours mostly. Over 450 million items per year are produced by Zara. Zara's production also includes various accessories, shoes and footwear, swimwear, beauty products and perfumes.

The first beauty line of Zara, ZARA Beauty was first launched in May 2021. 

In 2011, Greenpeace started a dialogue in collaboration with Zara. The dialogue was to ban the toxins from clothing production. "Toxic threads: the big fashion stitch-up" report was published by Greenpeace in November 2012. Greenpeace as a part of its Detox Campaign identifies companies that use toxic substances in their manufacturing processes. 

Zara committed to putting an end to all releases of hazardous chemicals throughout its entire supply chain and products by 2020 after nine days after the release of the report. In terms of raising awareness for the Detox Campaign, Zara became the biggest retailer in the world and then switched to a fully toxic-free producer. 

Zara retailer facts:There are 2007 Zara stores in 96 countries all around the world.

In early 2020 due to the Covid 19 pandemic, ZARA stores were temporarily closed worldwide restrictions of covid 19.

 

Written By: Ekta Singh