What Zara has achieved in 30 years in Greece

Zara's reputation in Greece did not take long to spread. Although its first steps in 1993 took place at a time when the self-service model in clothing and footwear retail stores was completely unknown in Greece. If you look for what the most popular clothing chain in Greece and perhaps the most popular right now in the world has finally achieved, it is the culture change it has instilled in the market and the consumer.

From where the customer was "supervised" by an employee who rushed to serve him upon entering the store, things changed radically in the process. What happened was that the consumer gained the opportunity to enter the shop, to move around autonomously, to take products off the shelves and hangers, feeling complete freedom and independence in his every move.

An element of the chain's philosophy in the stores was that from the very first moment, it made frequent deliveries to regularly change its product mix and renew its image. Part of its policy was to change the positions of products on its shelves and hangers frequently.

Merging of all the brands into one

Having already been on the road for several years, the Inditex group to which Zara belongs, proceeded in the summer of 2021 to merge all the brands it operates in Greece, namely Zara Home, Pull & Bear, Stradivarius, Oysho, Bershka, Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe, which operates in Greece only online, under the umbrella of Zara Hellas, which was renamed to ITX Hellas. With this operational restructuring move, the group has created all the conditions for economies of scale, personnel management possibilities under a common umbrella, and potential synergies that would further strengthen the company against all its other competitors.

The financial figures of ITX Hellas Group

Looking at the financial figures for the financial year that started on 1 February 2021 and ended on 31 January 2022, ITX Hellas generated 457.9 million euros from 328.7 million euros in the corresponding period ending on 31 January 2021. In terms of the bottom lines, it doubled its profitability before tax to EUR 29.53 million from EUR 14.57 million in the previous year, while net profit to the end of January 2022 was EUR 21.1 million from EUR 10.77 million at the end of the same month in 2021.

The dominant element for Zara in Greece is that of customer focus, which is reflected in the transformation of the Zara store in Golden Hall and the simultaneous change of the Glyfada one, now resembling the standards of stores abroad; at the same time, however, the commitment to environmental protection is one of its central characteristics.

The global route

Everything for Zara began when Ortega set up a dress factory, Inditex, in 1963. Zara's first name was Confecciones GOA. Twelve years later, in 1975, he launched a small store called Zorba in La Coruna, Spain with a budget of just 30 euros. It then changed the name to Zara with no specific intention. And thus the world's favorite brand was born. Zara slowly expanded her empire, from the city in Spain to the rest of the country and then to Portugal. By the 1990s the company had expanded to the United States, France, and most of Europe.

No advertising and 10,000 new projects per year around the world

The company internationally uses a fully differentiated business model that has allowed it to compete with other quality brands at relatively low prices. For example, it is reported that at Zara it takes only two weeks to design and launch a new product while the industry norm is around nine months.

Zara stores launch around 10,000 new designs every year. The chain has also, unlike the incumbents, resisted the trend to move production lines to countries with low labor costs. But what is most interesting is that what it has achieved has been achieved with zero advertising expenditure.