Zara's Fast and Furious Formula
The name Zara was well known to shoppers in Taiwan long before it opened its flagship Taipei store last November. The 36-year-old Spanish retailer has been described by Louis Vuitton fashion director Daniel Piette as “possibly the most innovative and devastating retailer in the world.” What's all the fuss about?
Zara's success is down to maverick entrepreneur Amancio Ortega, who founded the company in 1975. With an estimated worth of around US$31 billion, he is now one of the world's richest men. Ortega has succeeded through strategies that fly in the face of conventional wisdom, using a customer-oriented approach that follows rather than predicts trends.
On the shop floor, sales teams with PDAs solicit customer feedback, asking shoppers what they like, what they think could be improved and what they would like to see more of. This information is cross-checked with points-of-sale rankings and trends in unsold stock, which informs the restocking and style planning processes.
An early exponent of fast fashion, Zara replenishes stores worldwide twice weekly, using quick turnover to drive demand. The company famously needs just two weeks to move a product from development to shelves. This is aided by vertical integration, which sees Zara controlling the supply chain. Meanwhile, high air transportation and labor costs are offset by a severely-reduced advertising budget.
快速時尚，Zara 說了算！
早在去年十一月開設台北旗艦店之前，Zara 這個名字就為台灣的購物者所熟知。這家有 36 年歷史的西班牙零售商被路易威登時尚總監丹尼爾‧皮耶特形容為「可能是全球最具創新與破壞性的零售商。」這到底是怎麼一回事？
Zara 的成功要歸功於在一九七五年創立這家公司的特立獨行企業家阿曼西歐‧奧爾特加。估計身家約 310 億美元的奧爾特加是目前全球最富有的人之一。奧爾特加透過與傳統之見背道而馳的策略來取得成功，他採用了一種跟隨而非預測趨勢的顧客導向方式。
在購物樓層中拿著 PDA 的銷售團隊會蒐集顧客的意見，詢問購物者的喜好，他們覺得可以改進的地方，以及他們更期望看到什麼樣的產品。這些資訊會連同銷售點排名及未售出存貨的動向進行交叉比對，連帶影響重新進貨與風格企劃過程。
身為快速時尚的先驅，Zara 全球店面每週補貨兩次，以商品的迅速更新來驅動需求。這家公司出名的地方在於產品從發展階段到上架只需兩週的時間。這是藉助垂直整合來達成，也就是說 Zara 掌握了整個供應鏈。同時，航空運輸與人力的高成本則透過大幅縮減廣告預算來抵銷。
資料來源：biz 互動英語電子報
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