Exploration Of The Development Of Inditex Group Of Clothing Empire

In recent years,

It has also become more fashionable; even the princess Kate has been photographed wearing Zara.

"This is a common way in the retail market - not just Zara," said Isabel Cavill, a senior analyst at Planet Retail, a London based consulting firm.

Galicia, located in the autonomous region of the Atlantic on the coast of northwestern Spain, is the home of the Supreme Commander Francisco Franco, but on the other hand, it is also a place where people try to escape.

In twentieth Century, thousands of Galicia migrated abroad because it was too poor to survive.

Times have changed, although today's Spain is crumbling on the brink of economic collapse. The La Coru a of Galicia, as the home of Amancio Ortega Gaona, has attracted the attention of the whole world.

The latter has just taken the place of Warren Buffett this year, becoming the third place on the list of Bloomberg billionaires.

He is the founder of Inditex, a great success fashion company. The company's more well-known name is its oldest and largest brand, Zara.

Ortega never interviewed, never participated in any form of awards ceremony and party, and even rarely allowed the media to publish his photos.

Last year, when the 76 year old Ortega retired from the position of chairman, Pablo Isla took over the company and rarely visited her.

In fact, the only active face in the public eye is the director of corporate communications, the Jesus Echevarr a a, and through my recent visit to the Inditex Empire, I found that a communications director like him could not find second more things on earth: whenever asked about the success of Inditex, his answer was nothing but regret.

The apparent humility and low profile of the company also reside in its surrounding environment.

La Coru? A is a very quiet place. Typical European cities are commonplace: neat roads, well ordered traffic, and no need to worry about rubbing.

When I visited here in late July, the conservative government was threatening to adopt a new austerity plan. The unemployment rate of young people under 30 years of age in Spain was as high as 50%, but the city looked calm.

The restaurant business is very good, and the beach is full of people.

People lay snoozing on the big rocks of the sea, letting their dogs flutter in the sea.

La Coru? A, more than 300 km away from Madrid and 555 km away from Barcelona.

For a globalized and ambitious big company like Inditex, it is really weird to have headquarters here.

Inditex's industrial park is located in the Arteixo industrial area, adjacent to La Coru a. The headquarters of the whole company and the headquarters of Zara and Zara Home are located here. The park has a distribution center, which is loaded with freight cars and sent to all parts of the world; the factory is located right in the company's office building.

I waited for the arrival of the host in the main building. The room was arranged like a waiting room in the hospital. There were no other facilities except a few rows of ordinary black and square seats. A fashionable posters hung on the white walls, no extra decoration, no flowers, no big character poster, no ads, no fashion magazines, no style.

All this is in line with this tight fiscal year, even though Inditex is a thriving company in Spain.

A pioneer of fast fashion, the basic job is to imitate the latest in fashion and accelerate its low price version to the market.

All Inditex brands - Zara; Zara Home; Bershka; Massimo Dutti; Oysho; Stradivarius; Pull & Bear and - U - U - all follow the pattern: fashion, decent and low price, only in advanced stores.

The price of Zara is almost the same as that of Gap: the jacket is 200 dollars, the sweater is 70 dollars and the T-shirt is 30 dollars.

Inditex now produces 8 million 400 thousand garments a year, with 5900 stores in 85 countries, and this data has been changing, because Inditex has opened more than one store a day in the world in recent years, and there are about 500 new stores a year.

There are 4400 European countries, almost 2000 in Spain alone.

Inditex's main rivals are left behind: Arcadia Group (Topshop, etc.), the world's 3000; H&M, headquartered in Sweden, 2500; Mango, headquartered in Spain, 2400.

In a conference room, Echevarr a gave me a multimedia presentation of company profiles.

The number of flagship stores in different countries appears on the screen, of which 289 are in China and 45 in the United States.

From the beginning of our meeting, from late July to the present, the number of Inditex stores in China has reached 350, and a new one has opened in the United States.

One season after another, the pace of Inditex's expansion is overwhelming.

But can it survive in its own crazy expansion?

"Whenever we open a market, everyone asks," how many shops do you want to open? "He said," to tell the truth, I don't know.

It depends on customers and market demand.

We must talk with customers and learn from them.

This is not what we say you want to buy. You have to buy it. It's up to you. "

The origin of Inditex dates back to 1963. Ortega, the son of a railway worker, started his business journey in La Coru a through making robes and household clothes.

In 1975, he opened his own store in the city, named Zorba, from the movie "Zorba the Greek" in 1964.

"I don't think they want to make history, just because it's a good name," says Echevarr a. "But obviously, two blocks away, there's a bar, also called Zorba, and the bar owner comes over and says," two Zorba will make the guests feel dizzy. "

At that time, they had made letter moulds for signboards, so they could only be arranged in a new arrangement to see what other names were there.

They found Zara. "

The holding company Inditex was formally established in 1985.

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Ortega wants to leave its main manufacturing business in La Coru a, so from the very beginning, his business model is not going to go the unusual way.

Western traditional clothing and fashion companies usually send their designs to independent factories in countries like China or India, where cheap labor can lower product prices.

These garments were returned by sea and hoarded in stores in the two quarter of spring and autumn to reduce the number of shipments throughout the year.

But the brand of Inditex, for example, has to make a fall suit series, and only assign 3-4 stores, half skirts or tops to each store.

Stocks are few, even a small number of yards and yards are stored in the rear.

But if the store manager needs it, he can ask for more goods.

They also keep an eye on customers' reactions, basically whether they buy or not buy, and what they say to the salesperson: "I like this shoulder collar" or "I hate the zip lock on my ankle."

Inditex claims that their employees have been specially trained to extract similar customer reviews.

Every day, store managers report the information to headquarters, then convey to the company's large designer team, quickly develop new designs, and send factories to make clothes.

More than half of Inditex products are produced in factories near the company or close to the company, which is located in factories in Europe or North Africa.

Inditex's own factory in Spain, sometimes considering the expensive labor force, will normally be outsourced to factories in Portugal, Morocco and Turkey.

The rest is to China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Brazil and other countries.

The most fashionable fashions are made to the nearest factory, so the production process takes only 2-3 weeks from the beginning to the end.

Inditex slightly higher labor expenditure is offset by more fluid flexibility - no excess inventory around - and faster turnover.

This means that if there are customers in Inditex stores in London, Tokyo and St Paul, for example, when the red hot pants are warmly reacted, Inditex can be sent to these stores for more than three weeks, and an improved version of such hot pants can be delivered within the next week.

Companies try to keep shelves fresh; one of the promises made by stores is that you have always been able to buy near unique products.

Even with fast fashion standards, the speed of goods entering and leaving is still unimaginable.

All thousands of Inditex stores can receive new ones two times a week.

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Masoud Golsorkhi, editor of Tank, a London culture and fashion magazine, said that in this way, Inditex has completely changed the habits of consumers.

"When you go shopping in Gucci or Chanel in October, you know that these clothes will be put here in February next year," he said. "Zara, you know, if you don't buy it immediately, you'll be completely replaced in 11 days.

Buy it now or never buy it.

And because the price is low, you usually buy it on the spot.

Inditex will not attribute its success to advertisements.

Because it doesn't advertise at all.

Even it almost doesn't have a marketing department, nor does it hold fancy activities like its rivals, such as Stella McCartney, Karl Lagerfeld, Martin Margiela and Marni fashion designers.

Designers of Zara are obscure; some say it is because they are plagiarism, not designers.

What Inditex's marketing department is doing is related to real estate.

The company invested heavily in making shop design and shop location with aesthetic and historical sense.

"High street really does divide the lot according to the brand value," Golsorkhi also acts as a consultant to many fashion brands. "Prada wants to be next to Gucci, and Gucci also wants to be next to Prada.

The retail strategy of luxury brands is the farther away from Zara brand, the better.

Zara's strategy is to get as close as possible to them. "

In recent years, fast fashion has become more fashionable. Even the princess Kate has been photographed wearing Zara.

"This is a common way in the retail market - not just Zara," says Isabel Cavill, a senior analyst at Planet Retail, a London based consulting firm. "They are characterized by the fact that when you pick up a dress, it looks like 500 pounds, but you can have it for 50 pounds."

If people exaggerate the beauty of your clothes, you can brag about it, which can be said to be white.

Gradually, H&M and Mango tried to keep pace with Zara.

But the Inditex effect is not limited to high quality and inexpensive fast fashion.

It forces or inspires you to see how you see people buy their products in various ways.

For Zara, every purchase is driven by some kind of urge; you are no longer frugal for the gorgeous leather jacket in the window.

You buy clothes not out of favor, but because the hot pants of 50 dollars are the same as the two meals on Sunday, and if you don't, they will disappear in a few days.

This consumption mode has already adjusted buyers' expectations for high-end brands, and they hope that the latter can produce products and fashion trends that are changing all the time just like Zara.

"They broke the fashion cycle that lasted for a century," Golsorkhi said. "Now, nearly half of the high-end fashion companies (such as Prada and Louis Vuitton) create 4 to 6 fashion series a year instead of two in one year.

There is no doubt that this is all because of Zara. "

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This is a dazzling fashion age, and Inditex's brand is in this industry framework.

The latest and most fashionable in products are no longer attractive after buying women for a few hours.

A staff member of the Department of public relations (anonymity) showed me around the workshops of Inditex, perhaps in keeping with the company's low-key style. She wore a black legged trousers with a smooth fabric, a zippered ankle, a loose yellow jacket, and a small black suit with a back cut V shape. It looks fashionable and shiny.

Looking back on myself, I wore a dress that had been bought for at least 6 years, which basically made no difference from the way I was dressed in a 50s poodle skirt.

Zara headquarters is an open space that is almost as large as a giant aircraft library, and sales managers in each area are lined up behind a row of tables in the middle, and designers sit on both sides of them.

The manager has been on the phone in China or Chile to understand the sales situation, and then communicate with the designer to determine the trend of the next step.

In this way, the fashion pulse of the whole world is mastered by Inditex.

"The manager will say," my customers want red pants. If Istanbul, New York and Tokyo have such demand, it means that this is a global trend, and then they will produce more red pants. "

The staff of the public relations department said.

I told her that if the fashion in Turkey is different from the fashion in New York, it will be very interesting.

I think different nations will have different tastes, at least when dealing with what is fashionable.

But I was wrong.

"In fact, the fashion tastes of customers in New York and Istanbul are almost the same," she said. "There are some insignificant differences, such as Brazil girls like bright colors, while Paris girls are more often dressed in black.

But in general, when you find a fashion trend, basically it is universal. "

Earlier, Echevarr a told me that shopping neighborhoods were more similar.