Marketing Analysis of Zara: A Comprehensive Case Study

This case study analyzes the marketing strategies of Zara, a prominent global fashion retailer. It examines Zara's competitive environment, including key competitors like H&M and Gucci, and its strong market presence across the globe, with significant market share in Europe. The analysis highlights Zara's brand positioning, emphasizing its association with the latest fashion trends and its efficient supply chain management. The study also touches upon Zara's product portfolio, which includes apparel for both men and women, catering to mid-segment and high-end consumers. The case study discusses the company's marketing expenditure and provides insights into its operations in both developed and emerging markets, noting challenges in the fragmented clothing market in countries like India. Overall, the document provides a comprehensive overview of Zara's marketing approach and its success in the fast-fashion industry, as well as the competitive landscape and the company's global presence.

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Zara Marketing
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Analysis
Zara is a known retailer in different parts of the world. The company operates in the
readymade fashion clothes segment that is a competitive market. Zara is a Spanish company;
however, it has its presence in different parts of the world. The company has a strong hold not
only in developed parts of the world but also in the emerging markets. The management of the
company realizes that the industry is tough as there are lot of players in the market. In different
markets, Zara faces tough competition with the global brands as well as local brands. The key
competitors of Zara are H&M, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, etc. The competitors and Zara are under
strong pressure to cut the cost as the end consumers have the option to choose from various
players (Wong & Yazdanifard, 2014).
The good thing with Zara is that it has more than 2000 stores across the globe and the
company is determined to increase its presence in the global market. The company has close of
11% global market share of fashion and trend apparels. It is important to mention that this
segment of market share includes only the fashion and trendy apparels. The company has better
market share in the European market. For example, Zara has close to 18% market share in Spain
and France (Verhoef & Kannan, 2015). However, a dip in the market share is observed in the
emerging markets. For example, Zara faces tough competition from the organizations in the
unorganized sector in India and as a result the market share of Zara in India is less than 1%. The
problem with emerging markets is that the clothing market is highly fragmented and divided
between organized and unorganized sector and therefore, the retailers in the organized sector like
Zara face difficulties to increase their market share (Mayrhofer & Roederer, 2016).

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One of the positive things for Zara is its market reputation and brand value. Zara is
known in the world to manufacture and produce the trendy clothes quickly. The good thing with
Zara is that people associate Zara with latest trend and fashion. The brand positioning of Zara is
very strong as it is able to establish a direct connect with consumers. Their supply chain
management is extremely low cost as well as most of their processes like operations,
manufacturing is all vertically integrated. There is no direct information about the marketing
expenditure of Zara. However, it can be inferred that Zara spends close to 2% of its revenue in its
marketing activities. The revenue of the Zara is close to $16 billion. It means that Zara has close
to $300 million annual marketing expenditure (Vu & Medina, 2014). The product portfolio of
Zara includes the products for both men and women. A high-level illustration of the product
portfolio of Zara can be shown as:
The above product portfolio shows that Zara has products for its target audience across
basic, mainstream and trend that caters to mid segment and high end consumers.

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References
Mayrhofer, U. and Roederer, C., 2016. Zara: The international success of fast-moving fashion.
HAL.
Vu, T. and Medina, S., 2014. Storytelling marketing and its impact on developing company
brand identity, case company Zara.
Verhoef, P. C., Kannan, P. K., & Inman, J. J. (2015). From multi-channel retailing to omni-
channel retailing: introduction to the special issue on multi-channel retailing. Journal of
retailing, 91(2), 174-181.
Wong, K. and Yazdanifard, R., 2014. How Fast-Fashion Apparel Stores are able to Operate
Sustainably in New Global Economy. Journal of Research in Marketing, 3(2), pp.274-278.