Zara

• Zara is owned by Inditex SA, which is second only to Gap in worldwide sales

• Despite the fact that consumerism is dropping, Zara is expanding their operation by making their manufacturing, distribution, and in-store strategies more efficient

• New collections are brought into the stores twice a week, and because there aren’t many of each item, it makes them seem “exclusive” unlike H&M that mass produces each item

• Each collection often sells out

• Zara is setting an industry standard for expansion and efficiency even with major labels (Gucci, LV, etc) that now ship in new designs quicker 

• At the headquarters in Spain, sales of each piece are monitored, designers create new things according to the sales, and window displays are created on a mock storefront that is on a life-size street

• The first Zara store opened in 1975 in La Coruña, a port town near Arteixo in a remote corner of northern Spain. Its two key traits were an eye for customer tastes and a production process that started with the final price and worked backward to the most-efficient production. In the mid-'80s, local business-school professor José Maria Castellano, a technophile, joined Inditex as right-hand man to founder Amancio Ortega Gaona, and the company became a world-class logistical outfit, peddling "fast fashion." The first foreign store, in Portugal, opened in 1989, followed by New York. In 2001, Mr. Ortega took Inditex public and its stores are now on prime shopping streets around the world.

• At "the Cube," as employees call their futuristic-looking headquarters outside La Coruña, sales managers sit at a long row of computers, monitoring sales at every store around the world. When a garment sells well -- or flops -- they quickly tell designers sitting nearby to whip up fresh designs. In the basement, stylists decide store layouts and window displays. One room is built like a shopping street, its walls lined with lit and decorated store windows that dictate how storefronts will look from New York's Fifth Avenue to London's Regent Street. Every two weeks, new decorations are photographed and emailed to stores to replicate.

• On average a new Zara store opens everyday.

• Zara’s founder built the chain upon two rules: give customers what they want, and give it to them quickly.

• To this end Zara stores refresh their stock twice a week. The logistics building that delivers customized orders to stores around the world has a 24 hour turnaround deadline for Europe and the US.

• Each designer creates three items a day. The designers don’t go to fashion shows which happen too infrequently. Rather they track bloggers and important fashion districts to see what’s popular.

• The success of Zara has made the founder – who was born into poverty – the third richest man in the world.

• He has never had an office. Instead he sits on the open floor with everybody else where he can be engaged in the production process.

• He is also incredibly private. Until 1999 no photograph of him had been published. 

Well done to susie so so for getting this so fast but she is a big fan of the brand check out her blog 

susiesoso.blogspot.com/