According to Prof Nueno, Zara customers typically visit the shop four or five times more often than clients of a more traditional fashion store. “They sell in small batches and they are producing what they already know will sell,” he adds. This means, crucially, that Inditex has much lower inventories than its rivals, and...
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Maintaining oversight of the entire production chain often means "having to track down the subcontractor of the subcontractor of the subcontractor," said José Luis Nueno, a marketing professor at Spain's IESE Business School. Mr. Nueno gave Inditex high marks, but added that the task can get complicated when a company is producing the volume...
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“We’ll still have to see results,” Nueno said. “Turning around the company in one year is too optimistic.”
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"They look at whatever is new," fashion expert José Luis Nueno says. "They see what the celebrities and so on are wearing, and put it in their windows very fast."
Nueno studied the clothing company at Harvard Business School and now teaches at Spain's IESE Business School. He says the key to fast fashion —...
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Ortega keeps inventory low and stock fresh by constantly feeding stores new fashions instead of tying designs solely to seasons. Competitor Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMB) of Sweden, Europe’s No. 2 clothing retailer by revenue, can’t act as quickly because it outsources all of its production, according to a 2003 Harvard Business School study...
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"Ortega has been in the right place several times," says José Luis Nueno of IESE Business School. "When he started out he was competing against small players with poor distribution in a country that was just discovering fashion."
"Other companies copy the fast fashion model but only for 10% or 20% of their operation," says...
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"Inditex's business model has so far proved indestructible," says José Luis Nueno of the IESE business school, and author of one of the many case studies exploring the Galician company's success. He is currently preparing another, attempting to see where Inditex could be in five years' time, when it is expected to be turning...
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“The economics of global competition are such that consumer choice is diminishing in many sectors, which is not necessarily a bad thing – there’s little evidence of consumer resistance,” says Professor Nueno. “Recognizing this, Zara pinned its future on being able to supply well-targeted, fast-changing garment collections more efficiently that anyone had done...
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Zara, Professor Nueno points out, has a big offer in basic goods. These are low price products such as T-shirts and are positioned in the centre of the store. Crucially, although prices are low,margins for these products are high.
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Many U.S. apparel retailers are choking on slow-moving inventories as consumers hold back on spending. But Spain's Inditex, whose Zara chain pioneered cheap chic, is zipping ahead. The $13.8 billion company, which is closing in on Gap for the title of world's biggest clothing retailer, has nearly quadrupled sales, profits, and locations since 2000....
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