ZARA "Soft"

The popularity of fast fashion brands is becoming more and more popular in the world. For fashion brands, it is necessary to make up the quality of products.

Late apology

ZARA finally took the lead.

In May 5th, ZARA finally made a clear statement about the quality of products. From that day, if consumers purchased the products of ZARA, they could receive any unconditional return to any ZARA store in the country without making a small ticket.

　　 SA La commerce (Shanghai) Limited also said that the ZARA brand expressed regret for the quality problem to consumers, and will strictly abide by Chinese standards and laws in the future. At the same time, communication with Spanish headquarters is being made, hoping to come up with more detailed compensation measures as soon as possible.

ZARA finally made an apology, but the whole process turned out to be abnormal.

In April, the Consumers Association of Beijing announced the results of a comparative trial of some casual trousers sold on the market in Beijing. The quality problems of the ZARA casual pants and other brands produced by the Sally Commerce (Beijing) Co., Ltd. were mentioned.

The label of the ZARA casual pants in the spot checks is called "cotton content is 75%, wool 20%, polyester 5%", and the actual test result is that cotton content is 68.2%, less than 6.8% mark, wool is only 10.6%, less than half of the label, polyester fiber, polyester fiber content is 15.7%, more than two times the label. In the comparison test of "color fastness", ZARA's 3 items of acid perspiration, alkali resistance sweat stain and moisture resistance were not qualified.

Xing Yunying, director of laboratory technology of the national clothing quality supervision and inspection center, said: "these items are mandatory items for testing. These manufacturers are not only in the raw material What is more serious is that the safety index is not up to the national mandatory standards. "

It is understood that the implementation of the inspection body is the national clothing quality supervision and Inspection Center (Tianjin), is one of two international clothing quality supervision and Inspection Center (another one in Shanghai).

In fact, ZARA is not the first time that the quality of products has been detected in China. According to incomplete statistics, ZARA has been at least 7 times "quality gate" since August 2009. In recent years, ZARA has become the "familiar face" in the list of non conforming products of industrial and commercial departments and quality inspection departments.

According to Tang Xiangtao, a senior engineer in the comparative pilot project, the clothing exported to China must be sold through strict "standard" examination. However, many foreign brands entering China do not conform to China's quality standards, but little attention has been paid to them. Based on this, in March and April 2009, the center submitted a plan for the comparison test of Chinese and foreign brand clothing to the Beijing Consumers Association. In June 2010, the two sides finally signed the relevant "contract".

After the publication of the experimental results, ZARA, an international brand, has attracted the attention of the media. For a while, the report on "ZARA quality gate" appeared in the layout and web pages of many famous media. Even the people's daily made a great coverage of the matter - "don't let foreign clothing brands cheat you", referring directly to the ZARA quality problem. {page_break}

Compared with the attention of many domestic media, ZARA's attitude is very silent, and has not made any positive response to the matter.

To this end, Beijing Consumers Association sent a letter to ZARA brand operator, SA La Commerce (Beijing) company. "I hope your company attaches great importance to improving product quality and corresponding service measures in its business activities, respecting and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, and properly solving the losses caused by product quality problems to consumers." It is open to criticize its neglect of product quality and disregard of consumers' rights and interests.

Under the pressure of public opinion, the INDITEX group of ZARA issued its first statement in April 25th. According to the statement, ZARA clothing meets all relevant Chinese health and safety regulations, and all chemical tests are qualified. Among them, the inspection of color fastness indicated that ZARA clothing "meets the highest level of clothing standards in many testing categories". Only two items failed to meet the highest standards, but still achieved the quality of standard products.

In the case of discrepancy between the product label label and the actual product information, the statement explained that it was because acrylic and fibrous glue components were not labeled on the product label. According to the relevant Chinese rules and regulations, these fibers were labeled with "other fibers". The ZARA quality control department is revising this.

This statement only explained the detection of casual pants in April, but the previous two down jacket problems were not mentioned. At the same time, it was considered that it was wrong to label the ZARA label, but the cotton content of the fiber content of casual pants was 75%, the actual measurement was 68.2%, the nominal wool content was 20%, and the actual measurement was only 10.6%.

The statement stressed that ZARA's clothing "does not pose any health or safety threat to customers". But the statement did not mention how to deal with the problem products and how consumers could return them.

For this statement, the Beijing consumer association does not recognize it, saying that it is "avoiding the worst" and does not talk about the essence of consumer rights. Therefore, they asked the other party to make a statement again, send a letter to the Consumer Association, and give a clear attitude towards the processing of the product.

Until May 2nd, ZARA acknowledged the test results, and admitted to the Beijing Consumers Association that there was a problem in the quality of clothing.

In May 5th, ZARA apologized to consumers and promised "unconditional return".

Because the products failed to be sampled were sold in 2010, there are few people who really return the goods, but many consumers say that the attitude of businessmen is very important.

Arrogant "plagiarism"

In the same country, the quality supervision department has been named "seven times" for three years, and any brand has been changed. At the same time, it does not say whether it can continue to be a foothold. At least there will be a decent sense of crisis. Looking back at ZARA, it is a silent attitude, which is somewhat puzzling. But if you understand the development course of ZARA, especially the style of its founder AmancioOrtegaGaona, it may not be so strange.

Amancio Ortega Gaona1975 opened a small shop called ZARA in La Coruna, Spain, which is the prototype of Inditex group, the parent company of ZARA. Inditex group's market value reached 12 billion euros in 2001, exceeding Benetton, The Limited and Next. Sales in 2003 amounted to 4 billion 599 million euros, with net profit of 446 million euros and profit margin of 9.7%. By the end of 2003, there were 1922 chain stores and 39760 employees in 48 countries and regions. AmancioOrtegaGaona1 also became the richest man in Spain. 2008 is the turning point of ZARA globalization. When the global economic crisis swept the United States, ZARA surpassed its US rival GAP and became the world's largest clothing retailer. Three years ago, it surpassed H&M to become Europe's largest clothing retailer. In 2008, 70% of its sales came from outside Spain, while 60% of its sales came from the Spanish market.

Inditex is one of Spain's most successful businesses in 20 years. Inditex group's 78% turnover comes from Zara. At present, Inditex's flagship clothing store Zara, and Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradixarius and other brand clothing stores have 80% garments manufactured in Europe, of which 50% come from Spain.

In the fashion world, Amancio Ortega Gaona is not a popular colleague, because he plays more role as a "plagiarism". He created the ZARA brand formula of "first-class design, second class fabric and three price".

If you are his customer, no matter you are in any city in the world, you will be standing in the mainstream commercial area of the city if you see ZARA stores. Even if you visit once a week, you can always see new products in the window model. On the shelf, you can easily find "Armani" or "very Prada" clothes. In addition to those nuances, they are even copies of the T show on a few days ago, but the price is less than 1/5. This is the Spanish clothing company ZARA, known as "let the fashion industry frighten" by the US Newsweek.

It is understood that the main source of design information for ZARA is designers and more than 800 stores worldwide. Rather than "designer", it's more like "copy clerk". They are typical "flying trapeze". They often appear in various fashion events held by fashion centers such as Milan, Paris and New York to observe and summarize the latest design concepts and fashion trends. Some top brands are coming out of the latest design in less than 10 days, and ZARA will publish very similar fashion designs. This way of design ensures that ZARA keeps pace with fashion trends. In Europe, ZARA is said to pay a lot of fines to those top brands every year.

The media commented, "don't get entangled with the Amancio Ortega Gaona. If you are one of the top fashion dealers, he is willing to go to court with you and pay tens of millions of euros a year for allegations of plagiarism. It doesn't matter. He can still get hundreds of millions of euros in profits from the ZARA, the world's largest clothing company he created. Between the bad name and the profit, he chose the latter wisely. "

Amancio Ortega Gaona seems to have no intention of justification for ZARA's plagiarism and quality problems, because in his view, the mission of ZARA is to create "affordable fashion", which is "keeping up with customers' needs in the shortest possible time", which is not related to plagiarism. Even in pursuit of fast and parity, it is acceptable for ZARA to choose second class fabric and sacrifice a little quality if necessary.

In the Chinese market, ZARA's attitude is still very arrogant, but under the pressure of strong public opinion, ZARA finally chose to bow down and admit it. Perhaps, rather than the pressure of public opinion, it is rather the pressure from the market. After all, China has to consider its attitude in the face of such a huge market and huge market potential in China. ZARA

Is it a disaster caused by "fast"?

ZARA is the initiator and typical representative of Fast Fashion brand.

The so-called "fast fashion" mainly includes three aspects, that is, the delivery time is fast, the price is fair and the fashion trend is closely followed. "Fast fashion" produces 3-4 times the style of clothing every year, and the products are replaced every week. Fast fashion is characterized by "fast, ruthless and accurate". "Fast" means fast fashion clothes always follow the trend of the season. The speed of new products to shops is fast. The frequency of display is two times a week. "Ruthless" means fierce competition among brands, and consumers can buy fast fashion clothes at a speed comparable to brand competition. Monthly "moonlight clan" is an ordinary thing. "Accuracy" means eye sight. Designers can predict the trend in the near future and design all kinds of fashionable clothes in a short time. When consumers choose goods, they will buy them without hesitation.

Fast fashion brand has developed rapidly due to its own characteristics, but its quality also has its natural shortcomings. ZARA the seven - year quality gate in three years is a good example. Moreover, not only ZARA, but also some other fast fashion brands have similar problems.

Just as the quality of ZARA casual pants was exploded, another fast fashion giant H&M also boarded the list of unqualified products of AQSIQ. H&M unqualified product is a baby coat. The fiber composition and content (%) of the lower part of the product are not qualified. Similarly, H&M is not the first problem in China.

According to the insiders, ZARA and other fast fashion brands keep up with the trend, and constantly introduce new models. The quantity of each fashion is not large, which meets the needs of personalized shopping. However, another result of small quantity is that the number of suppliers is large and the number of suppliers is frequent. It is difficult to ensure that all the fabrics that are newly added to the supply chain pass through, and if each fabric is tested, the cost is too high. For garment enterprises, frequent replacement of fabric suppliers is a taboo. Stable supply chain means stable fabric quality. For example, men's clothing brand is stable because of the long product cycle and the quality of suppliers and fabrics. {page_break}

The industry also said that ZARA and other fast fashion colors are gorgeous. People who know about the textile industry know that dark fabrics are dyed with dyes. The brightly the colors are, the more dye they use, and the more superficial the color is, the easier it is to fall off, resulting in poor color fastness of fabrics. In addition, the dyed fabric must be processed after dyeing process to reduce pH and formaldehyde content. The process is not in good condition, which may make pH value and formaldehyde content exceed the standard. Looking at the problems identified by ZARA, color fastness, pH value and formaldehyde content are not up to three standards, which is closely related to ZARA's excessive pursuit of bright colors.

There seems to be a natural link between fast fashion and quality problems, but there are people in the industry who believe that fast fashion can easily lead to quality problems, but it is by no means an excuse for businesses to indulge quality, which is also not an inevitable problem. If the quality of the product can not be guaranteed, or even endanger the health of consumers, even if it is "fashionable" and "parity" again, it can only be abandoned after waiting for it.

For fast fashion brands, it is necessary to make up the quality of products.