Zara’s Fast Track to Fashion

The key to the the Spanish clothing chain is

efficiency – with a side order of fashion sense.
Take a look at how it’s done
By Kerry CapellSpanish retailer Inditex, owner of cheap-chic clothing chain
Zara, pioneered the concept of fast fashion. While most of the retail industry
takes months to bring new merchandise to market, Zara is able to move from
designer’s drawing board to shop floor in as little as two weeks thanks to its
tight control over every step of the process. Instead of setting the trends, Zara
follows them. It relies on a combination of fashion reconnaissance -- spotting
trends everywhere from the street to movies to couture fashion shows -- and
information from its customers to keep its merchandise fresh.
Tag Team
In Arteixo, Spain, Zara’s 200 in-house designers work in teams for the
company’s women’s, men’s, and children’s clothing lines. From their perch in
the massive 11,000 sq.-ft. hall, they work with Zara’s “commercials” (Zara’s
term for the folks who act as liaisons among the chain’s 2,800 global store
managers, designers, and production planners). The designers sketch out
new styles and determine which fabrics offer the best combination of fashion
and price.
Zap It
The design team electronically sends the patterns to Zara’s factory across the
street, where a prototype is made. The patterns are optimized via computer
so that no fabric is wasted.
Massive rolls of fabric are moved in the factory by lifting equipment. The fabric
is rolled out on a large table and covered tightly in plastic before a laser-
guided machine cuts it according to the pattern. The fabric is then bagged and
distributed to local sewing cooperatives, which return the finished garments to
the factory within a week.

Press and Go
Once the finished clothing is back at the Arteixo factory, workers handle
finishing touches, such as adding buttons and detailing. Each garment is
checked for quality. Those that do not pass the test are cast aside. Once the
checks are complete, the garments are individually pressed.

Alarming Efficiency
Next, labels for each country are attached. Zara used to rely on store
managers to do this once the product reached the store. But management
realized labeling all garments and applying security alarms at the factory
saved both time and money. The less time management spends on tasks
such as tagging merchandise, the more time it can spend selling.
Lonely Job
Once tagged, the garments are sent to Zara’s nearby distribution center via
tunnel. At the massive 500,000 sq.-ft. center, all merchandise is allocated first
by country, then by individual store using a moving carousel of hanging rails.
Although more than 60,000 items move in and out of the center each hour,
only a handful of workers are needed to monitor the process.
Quick Turnaround
More than 2.6 million items move through the distribution center each week,
and most spend little more than a few hours at the center. Using electronic
bar codes, each shop’s orders are carefully placed onto the appropriate
moving rail, ensuring each store gets exactly the right twice-weekly shipment.
Show Time
Just two days after leaving Zara’s distribution center in Spain, merchandise
arrives in U.S. stores. Zara transports its merchandise to the U.S. and Asia by
plane, enabling it to arrive in 48 hours. Delivery time in Europe is even faster.
Garments are trucked from the distribution center to stores within a day.
Instead of advertising, Zara lets its elegant, spacious stores in the world’s
ritziest shopping locations do the talking.
Store operation:

The store in a sense is the center of Zara’s entire operation—this

is where contact with customers takes place. Each item is carried
in small quantities on the principle that scarcity breeds desirability:
When customers find something they like, they tend to buy it on
the spot, since it might not be there when they return. Zara has a
much higher inventory turnover rate than most of its competitors.
Eighty-five percent of Zara’s garments are sold at full price,
compared with the industry average of 60% to 70% (Ferdows,
Lewis, and Machuca, “Rapid-Fire Fulfillment,” Harvard Business
Review, November 2004).