Zara (retailer) facts for kids
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Zara store in Midtown Manhattan
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| Industry | Retail |
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| Founded | 1975 (as Zorba) in Spain |
| Founders | Amancio Ortega Rosalía Mera |
| Headquarters | |
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Number of locations
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2,007 stores |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
| Products | Clothing |
| Revenue | €19.586 billion (2021) |
| Parent | Inditex |
Zara is a very popular clothing brand from Spain. It is part of a bigger company called Inditex. Zara sells clothes, accessories, beauty products, and perfumes. Its main office is in Arteixo, a town in Galicia, Spain. In 2020, Zara launched more than twenty new types of products.
Contents
History of Zara: How It Started and Grew
Zara began as a small shop and grew into a global fashion giant. It changed how clothes are made and sold, making fashion trends available much faster.
Starting Small: The First Zara Shop
Zara was started by Amancio Ortega and Rosalía Mera in 1975. Their very first shop was in A Coruña, a city in Galicia, Spain. This is still where the company is based today.
They first wanted to call their shop 'Zorba'. This name came from a classic movie called Zorba the Greek. But they found out there was a bar nearby with the same name. So, they changed the letters around to make 'Zara'. People believe the extra 'a' came from some extra letters they had made.
At first, Zara sold clothes that looked like popular, more expensive styles but at lower prices. Amancio Ortega then opened more shops across Spain.
Making Fashion Faster: "Instant Fashions"
In the 1980s, Zara changed how it designed, made, and delivered clothes. They wanted to get new trends into stores much faster. Amancio Ortega called this "instant fashions." They used computers and teams of designers to react quickly to new styles.
Zara's founders, Ortega and Mera, planned carefully to expand the company around the world. They changed the fashion industry by making clothes quickly. By keeping up with fast production and listening to what customers liked, Zara became a leader in global fashion. They delivered stylish clothes at good prices very fast.
Zara's Global Expansion: Opening Stores Worldwide
Zara's first shop outside Spain opened in 1985 in Porto, Portugal. Then, in 1989, Zara came to the United States. In 1990, it opened stores in France.
During the 1990s, Zara continued to grow. It opened shops in Mexico (1992), Greece, Belgium, Sweden (1993), and Israel (1997).
In the 2000s, Zara opened its first stores in many more countries:
- Brazil (2000)
- Japan and Singapore (2002)
- Ireland, Venezuela, Russia, and Malaysia (2003)
- China, Morocco, Estonia, Hungary, and Romania (2004)
- The Philippines, Costa Rica, and Indonesia (2005)
- Colombia (2007)
- South Korea (2008)
The 2010s saw even more growth for Zara. New locations opened in:
- India (2010)
- Taiwan, South Africa, and Australia (2011)
- Peru (2012)
Zara Online: Shopping from Home
In September 2010, Zara launched its online store. It first started in Jordan. By November of that year, online shopping was available in Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.
Online stores then opened in:
- United States (2011)
- Russia and Canada (2013)
- Mexico and South Korea (2014)
- Romania (2016)
- India (2017)
- Israel and Brazil (2019)
- Peru (2020)
In 2015, Zara was named one of the top 30 best global brands.
Recent Changes and Challenges
In 2019, Zara updated its logo. A French company called Baron & Baron designed it. Even though the global clothing business slowed down, Zara's sales actually went up.
In 2021, Zara left Venezuela because of economic problems in that country.
By January 2023, Zara had almost 3,000 stores worldwide. This includes its Zara Kids and Zara Home stores. These stores are spread across over 96 countries and the number keeps growing. In April 2023, Zara left Russia. It sold its business there to another company, and the stores changed their name to Maag.
What Zara Sells: Clothes, Beauty, and Home
Zara stores offer clothes for men, women, and children (Zara Kids). Zara Home products, which are items for the house, are found in European stores. Most Zara customers are between 18 and 35 years old.
After new products are designed, it takes only 10 to 15 days for them to arrive in stores. All clothes go through a main distribution center in Spain. Here, new items are checked, sorted, tagged, and loaded onto trucks. Most of the time, the clothes are delivered to stores within 48 hours. Zara makes over 450 million items every year.
Besides clothes, Zara also sells accessories, shoes, swimwear, beauty products, and perfumes. In May 2021, Zara launched its first beauty line, called ZARA Beauty.
Under its Zara Home brand, Zara also created a special laundry detergent. This detergent is believed to be the first one that helps reduce tiny plastic fibers from clothes during washing. This solution was developed with another company and can reduce fiber release by up to 80 percent.
How Zara Makes and Distributes Clothes
Zara is known for how quickly it can create new products. It takes only about one week to develop a new item and get it into stores. This is much faster than the average six months for other companies. Zara makes about 40,000 designs each year, and around 12,000 new designs are chosen and produced.
Zara does not spend money on advertising. Instead, the company uses that money to open new stores.
Zara built its own factory in La Coruña, Spain, in 1980. This city is known for its textile industry. In 1990, Zara improved its production and distribution system. This system, inspired by Toyota, is called "just-in-time" (JIT). It allows Zara to control everything from materials to manufacturing and distribution. Products can reach stores worldwide in just a few days.
Most of the products Zara sells are made in Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Morocco, Bangladesh, and recently, Armenia. While some other companies make all their products in Asia, Zara makes its most fashionable items in its own factories. These factories are in Spain (especially in Galicia), Portugal, and Turkey. Clothes that last longer, like basic T-shirts, are made by other suppliers, mostly in Asia, where costs are lower.
Zara can design a new product and have it in stores in four to five weeks. It can even change existing items in as little as two weeks. This quick process helps Zara meet customer preferences better. If a design does not sell well within a week, it is removed from shops. New orders for that item are canceled, and a new design is started.
Zara closely watches what customers like in fashion. Some basic designs stay year after year. But some trendy designs might only be on shelves for less than four weeks. This encourages Zara fans to visit the stores often. An average clothing store in Spain expects customers to visit three times a year. For Zara, this number goes up to 17 times!
Because more people are shopping online, Zara is focusing more on its online business. In the future, it will open fewer but larger stores. In May 2022, Zara started charging a small fee for some online returns in Britain and other main markets. This fee was also introduced in Spain in February 2023.
In November 2022, Zara launched a platform in the UK for selling pre-owned items. On its website and app, shoppers can sell unwanted Zara purchases. They can also book repairs for items or donate unwanted clothes online or at a store. If this service works well, Zara plans to expand it to other countries.
Making Clothes Safer: No Toxic Chemicals
In 2010, an environmental group called Greenpeace started talking with Zara. They wanted Zara to stop using toxic chemicals in its clothing production. In November 2012, Greenpeace published a report called "Toxic threads: the big fashion stitch-up." This report named companies that used harmful chemicals.
Nine days after the report came out, Zara promised to stop releasing all hazardous chemicals. This included chemicals in its supply chain and products by 2020. Zara became the largest clothing company in the world to support Greenpeace's Detox Campaign. It switched to making clothes completely free of toxic chemicals.
Zara Stores Around the World
As of November 2021, there were 2,264 Zara stores in 96 countries.
In early 2020, many Zara stores around the world temporarily closed. This was due to restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in April 2020, Zara's owner increased shipments to Asia. This happened as China ended its lockdown after 76 days.
See also
In Spanish: Zara para niños
- Bershka
- H&M
