LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Zara
built 486 days ago
Zara is a vertically integrated retailer. It designs, produces, and distributes itself.[15] Unlike similar apparel retailers in the same market, Zara controls most of the steps on the supply-chain. 50% of the products Zara sells are manufactured in Spain, 26% in the rest of Europe, and 24% in Asian countries and the rest of the world. [16] So while competitors outsource production to Asia, Zara makes its most fashionable items -- half of all its merchandise -- at a dozen company-owned factories in Spain. Clothes with a longer shelf life, such as basic T-shirts, are outsourced to low-cost suppliers, mainly in Asia and Turkey.[17]
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The secret to Zara's success is Inditex's ability to react quickly to fashion trends, rapidly restock stores to meet large demand and fearlessly pull lines that aren't working. Zara can create a new line, from initial concept to stocking store shelves, in three weeks. The key, said Inditex Vice President Jose Castellano, is communication and using technology to control almost every aspect of design, production and distribution.
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Zara has a unique business model that has enabled it to expand and compete with quality brands at affordable prices. For instance, it is claimed that Zara needs just two weeks [1] to develop a new product and get it to stores, compared with a nine-month industry average, and launches around 10,000 new designs each year. Zara has resisted the industry-wide trend towards transferring production to low-cost countries. Perhaps its most unusual strategy was its policy of zero advertising; the company preferred to invest a percentage of revenues in opening new stores instead.
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The Zara collection has a strong sense of tradition that stems not only from its rich finish and generously scaled molding, but ... from the decorative quartered design of the drawer front panels and top surfaces. Classic design elements such as architectural molding and column base add depth and interest. Unique yet familiar, the look of the Zara collection can fit into any traditional or modern bedroom.
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Zara is careful about the way it deploys the latest information technology tools to facilitate these informal exchanges. Customized handheld computers support the connection between the retail stores and La Coruña. These PDAs augment regular (often weekly) phone conversations between the store managers and the market specialists assigned to them. Through the PDAs and telephone conversations, stores transmit all kinds of information to La Coruña—such hard data as orders and sales trends and such soft data as customer reactions and the "buzz" around a new style. While any company can use PDAs to communicate, Zara's flat organization ensures that important conversations don't fall through the bureaucratic cracks.
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The Buddhist symbol for peace has the angles in the opposite direction so Zara should have done their homework. The world is still filled with White Supremacists/Nazis. Most are disaffected young men and women who need to deal wtih anger and trouble in their lives and get sucked up into the miasma of facist Nazism. It is still a driving force for racism against all groups not white and Aryan. The plan was to rid the world of Jews, Gypsies, Blacks, Gays, the mentally ill-anyone who did not fill the Teutonic ideal. Maybe Zara should make bags with the good old peace sign from the 60's.
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Zara