Behind ZARA's Strategic Application of SPA: Efficient Supply Chain

Stylish ZARA showcase


Founded in 1975, Zara has won the majority of the market with its fast, imitation-style competition model. It is a model of the SPA business model. In the past 10 years, the maintenance of turnover has grown rapidly at a rate of 20% to 30%. It took only 30 years to surpass H&M, also a rival from Europe, to become the second-ranked clothing retailer in the world, second only to the US GAP.

In 2005, ZARA's global sales were 6.741 billion euros, with 429 million sales and net profit of 803 million euros. In the same year, ZARA ranked 77 among the 100 most valuable brands in the world. In June 2007, Zara's parent company, Inditex Group, said that in the first quarter of 2007, Inditex Group's net profit increased by 33% to 2.66 billion U.S. dollars, thanks to the rapid expansion of its three leading brands such as Zara in Spain, France and China.

Today, this fast-growing legend of ZARA has been widely circulated in the world, and has become a typical case analysis of corporate development in China. We also focus on analysis here, which also suggests that companies can measure and adapt themselves Learn from ZARA's brand development model.

Zara's success is not accidental. Her success is the inevitable result of a full understanding of the market. Zara's demand for high technology is very high, so that all designers can maintain daily communication with the manager of each store to confirm what is the market demand and what is not. In the company, all sales records are reported simultaneously. The details of the clothing sold in the shop will be returned to the headquarters at the same time. In this way, the goods in the store can be made up in the shortest time, and the new goods can be sent to the store in time, which saves the cost of expensive warehouse operations. At the headquarters, all the designers work together with the five departments of the production department, sales department, marketing department, sample department, and so on, so that they can grasp the market demand of the global stores in a timely manner. Zara’s more than 400 designers will launch more than 20,000 kinds of designs each year. The average number will be changed twice a week. The high-speed mode of operation will make the clothing styles in the store change very quickly. The clothes in the store will rarely stay more than one. The month also made all retailers eliminate the fear of the same style as other brands.

(A) The use of SPA strategy created the "fast" of ZARA

ZARA is just a small company in Spain that has no name and no strong capital and other advantageous conditions. However, through the vertical integration of the supply chain, the speed of the entire product operation keeps pace with the fashion, grasping the essence of the fast fashion industry and gradually forming The core competitiveness of the brand. The core of ZARA's SPA operation is “fast”, all operations of the company are based on “fast”, and even for the speed at a relatively high cost of procurement and distribution, the data from the table can directly experience the rapidity of ZARA. .

(B) The key to the success of SPA strategy - ZARA efficient supply chain

ZARA's supply chain includes product organization and design, procurement and production, product distribution and sales and feedback four major links, ZARA through the vertical integration and provision of the entire supply chain, so that each link is a compact and smooth match, so that the product The speed of circulation has increased to the extreme.

1, product organization and design

ZARA's products are not "designed" or "developed" but "organized and designed" because Zara's development model is not original design or development. It is only followed by leading big fashion brands.

First of all, ZARA's product planners and designers often participate in high-end brand conferences in major fashion centers around the world, drawing inspiration from the designs of these top designers and top brands, capturing the new round of popular style trends. ZARA has a professional design team of more than 400 people. The team collects fashion information from Milan and Paris and draws inspiration. It designs nearly 40,000 new products every year. From there, the company chooses 12,000 to 20,000 models to hit the market. ZARA designers have a great workload and there are many job-hopping phenomena, but they have little impact on ZARA because ZARA has carried out “product development management” in an orderly manner.

In the modern building of ZARA headquarters, designers for women's, men's and children's wear are located in various halls. The ZARA design hall is shown in Figure 1. Each hall is very spacious and it is very convenient to communicate with neighboring colleagues. Designers usually sit on one side of the hall, market experts sit in the middle of the hall, and purchasing and production planners sit on the other side of the hall. In the center of each hall there are some large round tables where designers can hold ad hoc meetings there, or they can gather and communicate with each other. In the middle of the hall, there are some comfortable chairs and shelves full of various fashion magazines. Designers can sit and look around at any time. The entire design process is informal and open.


ZARA promotes the design atmosphere of democracy and innovation. There is no chief designer. The average age of all designers is 26. At the same time, ZARA encourages designers to get inspiration from anywhere in the world and encourages global chains to express their opinions during the design process.

ZARA's “market experts” are staffed by experienced staff who manage some of the chain stores. In the work, “market experts” must maintain a good relationship with the first-line chain store manager, they will contact frequently, through the phone to talk about sales, chat products, chat orders, chat customers and other things. In order to better promote this kind of communication and communication, the company has equipped all store managers with special digital line telephones to ensure that they can quickly transmit data on the latest market trends. In the same way, the chain stores also determine the final order based on the information obtained by communicating with the “market experts”.

Secondly, Zara has global fashion buyers around the world. They buy seasonal products from local high-end brands or major competitors, and quickly return samples to their headquarters for making changes or using alternative fabrics. The New.


ZARA's "procurement specialists" are also experienced veterans who are responsible for planning the entire completion of the order. The first consideration is whether to purchase raw materials or to produce their own, and secondly to monitor the inventory of warehouses, to send production tasks to various factories or outsource them to third parties, and also to monitor whether the products in the market are oversupply or in short supply.

The ZARA design team likes to "plagiarize" the trend information of the latest fashion week everywhere, and at the same time, they work together to work together to design upcoming popular models, quickly update the products of the season, discuss the need for fabrics, the approximate cost, the related price and other issues. And reach a consensus as soon as possible. What's more, everyone on the team is a spokesperson. For example, designers need to keep in touch with the international arena that represents each season's fashion trends. New products are introduced every week. Market experts are required to assign dedicated handheld devices to branch store managers through the company to maintain instant contact with the frontline and keep abreast of market trends. Orders and designs are determined; chain managers control the channel information and order on demand, etc.; procurement personnel have independent decision-making abilities, and on the basis of a comprehensive understanding of the global textile market, determine those who can guarantee quality, style and delivery The suppliers negotiated with them and eventually made the goods available in a timely manner. The delivery personnel, on the premise of knowing the inventory situation, guaranteed the supply of goods according to the manager's requirements and shared their opinions with the design team and participated in them.

Third, Zara has special personnel to fashion shows, trade fairs, cafes, restaurants, bars, ballrooms, fashion magazines, university campuses and other places and places to observe film and television stars, street performers, street pedestrians, etc., to analyze the popular elements and Clothing details, through the collection of such information, timely understanding of consumer preferences, popular lifestyle and so on.

Fourth, Zara stores around the world return sales and inventory information through the information system for the headquarters to analyze the characteristics of best-selling/unsalable products such as styles, designs, and sizes so that they can be referenced when planning and designing new garments.

After collecting all these popular information, the design team composed of designers/fashion experts and buyers (responsible for purchasing samples, fabrics, outsourcing and production plans, etc.) will work out a feasible design plan.

2. Procurement and production

To reduce circulation time, 80% of ZARA's products are produced in Europe (higher production costs) and only 20% of products are produced in Asia (lower production costs). ZARA has its own factory and also has a long-term cooperation with the sewing factory. After measuring the style, production costs and the actual situation of its own factories, ZARA decided whether to process in its own factory.

If it is sent to the processing factory of the outside association, ZARA also controls the links related to fashion (such as pattern making/cutting/post-finishing) throughout the entire process. It only transports the sewing work to the outside factories for sewing through the conveyor belt, and it also sews in the outsourcing process. There are also people in the factory who control the quality of the product.

For some basic styles, we will consider outsourcing production to low-cost countries such as Asia in order to reduce the cost of production. Of course, the shortcomings are also obvious - the production cycle will be lengthened.

3. Product delivery

After the production of the product is completed, the product is transferred to the logistics center through the underground conveyor belt, and the goods are directly delivered to the shop from the logistics center. To ensure that each order arrives exactly on its destination on time, Zara uses a laser barcode reading tool (error rate is less than 0.5%) and it can pick and deliver more than 80,000 pieces of clothing per hour.

Each store's orders will be placed in their own box, using the direct match mode. In order to accelerate the logistics turnover, Zara headquarters also has a two-lane highway express delivery center. Usually the goods can be taken away within 8 hours after the order is received, and each store is allocated 2 times a week.

The trucks in the logistics center are constantly connected to each place in accordance with the fixed departure schedule. They are transported directly to various stores in Europe and use two nearby air transport bases (one smaller is in A Coruña and the other is larger. (Santiago, Chile) is delivered to the United States and Asia, where it is sent to various stores using third-party logistics trucks.

4. Terminal sales and information feedback

In the terminal sales shop, it is worth noting that it is displayed. Some people commented that ZARA is a first-class image, a second-rate product, and a third-rate price. It can be seen that ZARA pays attention to the site selection and storefront display. Window design, furniture, etc. are generally planned by the headquarters professional team to ensure a unified brand image, but also allow the store to concentrate on customers and sales.

After a lot of training, the store salesperson often re-displays the in-store merchandise, so that the store has a fresh feeling every day; tops, pants, bags, accessories and other together to reduce the pain caused by the lack of a suitable match to the customer Instead, experience the joy of one-stop shopping.

Each ZARA store has a system for transmitting sales information. The store stores the relevant information of the headquarters through the system every day for reference by the design team, and can also place orders through the system.

In order to make the design and development work efficiently, ZARA has done a lot of work in collecting information, including sending people to observe and record the dress of young fashion groups on university campuses, discos, and other venues, from professional organizations and industry associations. , Fashion news conferences and other professional media have extensively collected information on fashion, connected stores scattered around the world with headquarters, and so on.

One of ZARA's control centers is located in the company's new district. In a large office area, nearly 12 staff members work by the telephone. ZARA can hear French, English, German, Arabic, Japanese, and of course Spanish. These staff are responsible for continuously gathering information from all over the world, which shows the evolution of customer needs and needs.

In addition to this fixed working group, mobile working groups are spread all over the world. They go deep into the fashion districts of colleges, nightlife venues and other places where popular clothing is gathered to observe the crowd's dress. All information was transmitted to La Coruna in the first instance in various ways.

In summary, Zara's success is mainly reflected in: communication, logistics and market information collection. Communication between departments, communication between companies and retailers, and communication between designers and customers are all essential for each apparel company. The full use of logistics represents the reduction of warehouse costs and the completeness of the clothing line of shops. The collection and analysis of market information is the most important, and this is also the weakest link in China's apparel industry. The biggest asset of a garment company is not capital, nor is it a unique design. It is not the clothing accumulated in the warehouse, but the satisfaction of customer needs. If this is done, there will be no shortcomings that most garment companies will have: Only a few garments are sold well each season, and the company's income can only be maintained and developed by relying on these garments.

The success of ZARA has made international apparel brands breathtaking. It can be said that the emergence of ZARA has forced other apparel brands to accelerate the pace of fashion, and its SPA strategy model is an example of clothing brand learning.