Zara Background

ZARA is a Spanish high fashion designer, manufacturer and retailer. ZARA is a subsidiary of Inditex group which own by Amancio Ortega and founded in 1975. Inditex group is the top of clothing retailer in Spain and the world's largest fashion group with more than 5,000 stores around the world. It owns ZARA and other eight clothing brands and ZARA is one of the most successful. Moreover, ZARA is the largest Inditex division since it is accounting for more than 75% of total Inditex sales. By August 2008, ZARA's sales volumes ahead of GAP, it making Inditex become the world's largest fashion retailer.

The first ZARA store opened in 1975 in Spain and their Headquarter locate in La Coruña in Spain. In 1988 the first overseas, ZARA store opened in Porto, Portugal, followed shortly by New York City in 1989 and Paris in 1990. But the real step-up in foreign expansion took place during the 1990s when Inditex entered 29 countries in Europe, the Americas and Asia (particularly during 1998 to 2001 when it entered 21 of these29 countries).

ZARA's target market is very board, from men to women, teen to kid, formal to informal. ZARA locates retail stores in central business districts with many top fashion brands for building a high street fashion image. ZARA sells their trend clothes with good quality items at affordable price. However, ZARA is a fashion imitator and their business concept is fast fashion. ZARA focuses on understanding the fashion items that its customers wanted and then delivering them, rather than on promoting predicted season's trends. They turnover their fashion item with newly designs in two weeks. The different between ZARA with other competitors is they preferred to invest a percentage of revenues in opening new stores instead. ZARA has developed a unique business-model and ZARA is a vertical integrated retailer.

ZARA had been considered as one of Europe's