L'analyse de la stratégie de Zara le long merçandayzingu c tselyami

Analyse of Zara merchandising strategy with Zara’s targets

We chose two very different locations, which are Gran Via and Principe Pio, because one is in a very famous street in Madrid, and the other one is in a mall near the centre. Even if these two places are distinct, Zara took advantage of various assets because in the two cases, Zara achieved to attract its target and fulfil its goals.

As regards Gran Via location, there is a main advantage to be located on a crowded street because different kind of persons crossed that street and each one of them is likely to be a potential customer of Zara (mothers with their children for Kid’s collection, active women for Women collection, teenagers especially young girls with TRF collection and men with Men collection too)

Concerning Principe Pio location, it is a mall where Zara’s competitors are located. So it is necessary for the brand image to be represented in this kind of showcase.

We can notice that the two different locations may not appeal the same target. Principe Pio is more attractive for persons coming from suburbs (because they earn less money or because they live too far from the centre) whereas Gran Via appeals a customer base more chic, who earn more and who is living in the centre of Madrid. Likewise Madrid centre is crowded of tourists who are not able to go in Principe Pio because they don’t know the town.

Yet even if people come from different social-professional categories, Zara achieves to reach its target.

Zara strategy is based on three key elements, which are:

• Fashionable and affordable clothes

• Large choice of styles

• Scarcity

The first key element is fashionable and affordable clithes. That’s means than Zara’s strategy is to offer cutting edge fashion at affordable prices by following fashion and identifying which styles are “hot”, and quickly getting the latest styles into stores. They can move from identifying a trend to having clothes ready for sale within 30 days. This is made possible by controlling almost the whole garment supply chain from design to retail.

The second element is a large choice of styles. Zara produces around 12,000 styles per year (compared to the retail average of 3,000), which means that fresh fashion trends reach the stores quickly. A typical Zara’s customer visits the store 17 times a year compared to the average of 3 times per year.

The last key element is scarcity. Indeed, by reducing the manufactured quantity of each style, Zara creates artificial scarcity and lowers the risk of having stock it cannot sell.

Scarcity in fashion increases desirability, which means shoppers need to buy quickly as the item may not be available next week.

Lower quantities also mean there are not much to be disposed when the season ends; Zara only discounts 18% of its stock in sales, which is half the industry average.

Zara succeed in developing its strategy and which makes it a famous firm because it achieved to blend together luxury and sobriety, two critical elements for fashion addicts.

Furthermore, through its merchandising strategy (decor, location, shop windows, music, furniture and colours) Zara allows the customer to be focus on the main element: products. Those latter are line up according to their colour.

So its merchandising strategy is an achievement because it adapted very well to appeal the desired targets.

Analyse of our observations according to both locations (Gran Via and Principe Pio) and days (wednesday and Saturday)

Zara has two types of standard customers: the teenager and the young adult. We are going to explain various points of the two standard customers of Zara in the following board.

Category Teenager Young adult

• Age

• Budget

• Style

• Stop in front of the windows

• Enter in the store The teenager who goes to Zara is between fifteen and twenty-five.

They come in Zara with less 600€.

We can notice that most of them are classic and fashion.

Depending on the location.

Most of them come and do their shopping. The young adult is between twenty-six and forty.

The young adult earn money and therefore their budget is less limited, and it comprised between 600€ to 1500€.

We can notice that most of them are classic and fashion.

Depending on the location.

Most of them come and do their shopping.

This board highlights general data about the observations that we have done. Now we are going to present a more accurate analyse about our observations.

We have notice that there are more women who go to Zara than men. More precisely, there are many young student and working women (between 25 and 60 years old) who adopt a fashion or classic style. Broadly, these women come alone or with their friends.

However, we observe that there is a few women older (between 40 and 60 years old) wearing classic clothes (mothers for example) who come alone or with their daughters.

Whereas men (between 26 and 60 years old) come alone and they adopt a classic or casual style in many cases.

Even if the two places are distinct, one is located on of the most famous street in Madrid surrounded of many stores, which sell the same type of products with the same price, so appeal a lot of people likely to come in Zara’s Gran Via store. And concerning the other one located in Principe Pio, the store is in the background of the mall. So it is only regular customers who can go to it because the store is hidden and it is less visible compared to its competitors.

Thus, we observe for both

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