Internationalization of the Spanish Fashion Brand Zara
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Internationalization of the Spanish fashion brand Zara This article introduces Zara which is one of the world’s most successful fashion retailers. The research in mainly focused on the internationalization process of Zara, and we can study much about from this case. To Zara itself ,its aim is to democratise fashion by offering the latest fashion in medium quality at affordable prices, thus ,compared to many other textile or clothing company ,it has a strong competitive advantage. Meanwhile ,Zara’s business model is unique and cater to the market. Further more, this article discuss the internationalization process of Zara,focusing on three issues:MOTIVATION,MARKET SELECTION and ENTRY OPTIONS. In terms of motivations, attractive conditions in the host market are the “pull factors”. As we all know, the market in span is limited ,and the textile and clothing industry is mature ,so Zara needs to seek the larger market abroad. While the “push factors” are those that encourage the organization to search for international opportunities. With the development of technology, the culture gap(people’s taste of fashion) is narrowing ,Zara investigates customers’ psychology and keep pace with it.
Zara’s market selection seems to follow “stage model”. It started from Portugal where the culture and geography are quite similar, then it deep to west-Europe,with two countries per year. Though some of these countries have long distant from Span,but they usually have the similar culture background. Besides, Zara explored its market in Paris and New York where the culture and fashion attitudes mix. It is a significant strategy because it helped Zara to build brand awareness and get close to international fashion trend. The AGGRESIVE EXPANSION happened from 1997 to 2005, it intended a rapid global expansion ,regardless of cultural and geographical proximity. Here is the market entry strategies, it adopted three different models:OWN SUBSIDIARIES, JOINT VENTURES and FRANCHISING. Own subsidiaries is adopted mostly in European and South American countries which seems to have high growth potential and low business risk. In large and competitive market where it is difficult to acquire property to set up retail outlets , Joint ventures are common,such as Germany, japan and Italy.  Also,we can learn a lot from the International marketing strategies of Zara. At the beginning, Zara choose ethnocentric orientation, but in some countries, there were huge obstructs due to the difference in culture. Therefore, Zara moved towards a geocentric orientation. The companies were asked to pay more attention to the local solutions instead of the home market merely. It seems to a important turning point.