5 ZAZR Analysis
5.1 Zara background
Inditex founder, Amancio Ortega Gaona, started his fashion business in 1949 at the age of 13, as a delivery boy for a local shirt maker in La Coruña, Spain and in a little over a decade was working as shop manager. With the knowledge and experience gained along the way, he began developing his own designs, after which he left his job to start his own business in the early 1960s. With only $25 in startup capital and working out of his sister’s home, Ortega’s vision was to replicate popular fashions using affordable materials, creating high demand clothing that could be sold at lower prices. He sold his gowns, housecoats, and lingerie to his former employer and other local shops. By 1963 he had opened his first factory, and by the early 1970s began dabbling in retail (Geller, 2013). It was in 1975 that Ortega opened the first Zara store in La Coruña.
Nowadays, this brand generates about two-thirds of group sales. Zara’s core consumers are 20-45year old women, though they also have kids and menswear offerings. Zara is the group’s most geographically diverse retail concept with 80% of its full line stores located outside of Spain. There are 2,162 Zara stores in 88 countries. Zara’s online retail format launched in 2010, and is now available in 27 countries, covering most of Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States, and will continue to be rolled out in smaller markets. (Inditex annual report, 2015)Zara’s market positioning
5.2