SKEMA French Fashion : Zara's customer insight

Hello my dear readers! Now it’s my turn to tell you about my experience of staying in Zara shop, meeting its customers and getting deeper in their minds and I am going to explain you why do they go shopping in Zara and not to another shop and what they think about while choosing their clothes…

So here we go!;)

To cut a long story short, “fast fashion” is Zara’s customer magnet.

By understanding what motivates its “fashionista” customers, Zara has changed the definition of success in fashion retail. Customers make an average 17 annual store visits, compared to 4 visits for other retailers. The Zara “habit” that keeps customers coming through their door results in more products sold at fully retail and not left till sale season: nearly 85 percent of Zara’s inventory sells at full price, compared to a retail average of 40 percent.

Zara wants customers coming back into their stores, where customers can always find new products—but they're in limited supply. There is a sense of tantalizing exclusivity, since only a few items are on display even though stores are spacious. A customer thinks, "This green shirt fits me, and there is one on the rack. If I don't buy it now, I'll lose my chance."

Such a retail concept depends on the regular creation and rapid replenishment of small batches of new goods. Zara's designers create approximately 40,000 new designs annually, from which 10,000 are selected for production. Some of them resemble the latest couture creations. But Zara often beats the high-fashion houses to the market and offers almost the same products, made with less expensive fabric, at much lower prices.

The process of shopping in Zara can even remind us a ‘hunt’ for clothes. Customers swarm to stores to see what is new and what they must not miss and what they must own before it’s gone forever. It is not H&M where you see the same top hanging for 4 months so then you can think about purchasing it for weeks.

Fast decisions and more money spending – that’s what shopping in Zara is all about.

Picture: http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/04/17/1226040/590782-zara-fashion-sydney-retail.jpg

But how Zara reaches its customers?

· Store location: The company always tries to find the perfect location and ensure its brand is visible to as many people as possible. Go to any major cosmopolitan capital of the world and you will find Zara situated in the most prime locations of every posh neighborhood worldwide. In fact, it tries to situate its stores as closely as possible to any other luxury brands such as Burberry and Prada; however, at the same time, Zara still maintains its affordable prices for its customers. This strategy can help Zara not only to build up its brand as fashionable designs with high quality but also attract those who have limited budgets to buy stylish goods.

Zara shop in Cannes
Picture: http://www.1-cities.com/images/shopping-images/lrg_zara_cannes_2012_1000x750_1103270271.jpeg

· Store window: The first meeting point with the customer. Zara indeed does not have any printed advertisement such as posters or brochures, but they promote themselves through their display windows.

Picture: http://retaildesignblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Zara-Christmas-windows-2012-London.jpg

A display window is a window in a shop displaying items for sale or otherwise designed to attract customers to the store (Wikipedia). Definitely Zara sets their focus on the second characteristic of display windows. Instead of paying a lot of money for printed advertisement they invest this money and a huge amount of time into the design of the display windows. It is not just a way of presenting the most outstanding pieces of their new collection. For Zara the display windows are a way of powerful communication to the customer. But who is in charge of the shop windows?

It all happens in La Coruña (Spain), where the headquarters of Inditex called “The Cube”, who is the fashion group that owns Zara, is based. In the lower floors of the headquarters is a display unit provided, which consists of 25 full-size store windows with display platforms and variable lightning. Special teams of designers try to invent new shop-window-looks there and analyze how the store windows will look like on a bright day or at night. This display unit is called “Fashion Street” and is similar to a laboratory, where store constructions, window displays, and merchandising are evaluated and tested. Once a shop window design is approved, they are sent out to the stores. Paris as well as New York and also Berlin-all stores worldwide have to adapt to the chosen display window design. However the product line can be different from store to store, but the window designs have to be the same everywhere.

Zara manages not only its display windows, but also the colors, the light, the price, also the music that we hear and many other things so that the customer is attracted to the store. All the work Zara puts into the window design pays off, because a lot of customers walk by and think: “Wow, this looks so great! I just have to go inside!”

Picture:http://retaildesignblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Zara-windows-2013-London.jpg

· Interior design and store image: Has to be right every time. Zara renews this image every six to eight months in all of its stores. First of all the store is extremely spacious at more than 1,400 square meters, you get to shop at ease in an interference-free environment. The store design’s main focus is simplicity, making shopping simple.

Picture: http://rockthetrend.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/IMG_4249.jpg

But the problem is, when there is a sales period, you will find such a mess in the shop, that sometimes it is impossible to find anything in huge piles of clothes!

Pictures: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNYw2V3wAQfgvdwi-gS1VohS59AHvSqru-Db7CuzZVuYobDT5AtyiqXcvhCArOc5vL5LbO2Zwu4k1zo4husAEhs1PXCfw_5m_M9BzCJ3OaD9Wjxp5KJVuxwZp2vFPVC-sHJFX5l9kvgQ/s640/zara-delhi-sale.jpg
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· Goods display: A dedicated team of coordinators displays the collections by showing off the best trends, fabrics and colors. Zara is changing its collections every 15 days. The staff has certain rules of how to organize and locate clothes and shoes in the shop: they need to match with each other by style and colors! When a customer finds a beautiful blouse, clothes, which are lying around that blouse, will for sure catch her attention as there will be some shoes, bags and jeans which all together make an excellent look.