Wednesday, November 05, 2008

A Vertically Integrated Clothing Retailer?

Business Week had an article about Zara, the Spanish apparel retailer, a few weeks ago. I actually just taught a case study about Zara, as I often do in my MBA strategy course. It's a fascinating company. While many clothing retailers outsource all production to low wage nations, particularly in Asia, Zara actually produces a substantial percentage of their clothes in their own factories in Europe.

Their vertical integration strategy is designed to enable them to react very quickly to market trends, and to produce fashionable clothes very quickly as part of their "fast fashion follower" strategy. The fast replenishment model and massive flexibility means Zara makes fewer mistakes, and when they do make a fashion error, it is less costly becuase they haven't ordered a huge shipment of the item from Asia. Because of this, they have fewer markdowns, and their markdowns tend to be smaller. That helps create higher operating margins.

Vertical integration always has its risks, but in this case, Zara has found a way to make it very profitable. It also has helped to create a unique business model that is very hard to imitate.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for nice blog. SizeGenie is your personal body scanner. Quickly and accurately take your measurements so you always get the perfect fit when buying clothes online. Body-Cloud is the creator of SizeGenie, with a Kickstarter campaign on the way aiming to change fashion shopping for good.

Unknown said...

Howdy! Pleasant stuff, do update me as often as possible when you post again something like this! nighty

pitbull said...

I would never like to fail out any chance to read out your listings. quality wordpress themes

ExclusiveStore.PK said...

Thanks for sharing fashion updates, shopping online women's latest collection on Exclusive Store.
online shopping with cash on delivery

Unknown said...

Graceful written content on this blog is really useful for everyone same as I got to know. Difficult to locate relevant and useful informative blog as I found this one to get more knowledge but this is really a nice one.
Naviforce Sports Watch

Cleaning Company Dubai UAE said...

Should you have babies, a productive night out demands well over only a click decent dining event not to mention fantastic business enterprise. You furthermore mght desire you to definitely track the, and that's exactly thats babe ski truly does. Some babysitter might be paid off to look after kids on your property. They could be especially typically the young adult because of not far away maybe a full-time babe ski because of an agency. He or she can requirements routinely, possibly for the purpose of wonderful moments when ever vital. cleaning services