Preview

Fast Fashion

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
844 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Fast Fashion
Fast Fashion: A Clothing Retailer’s Dream?
By Sarah Stefanson March 8, 2010

You may have heard the term “fast fashion” being thrown around lately. For those of us without tons of disposable income, fast fashion is a trend that can allow us to don the latest looks walking the runways at a fraction of the cost of designer clothing.
Clothing retailers such as Zara, H&M and Forever 21 are taking advantage of the fast fashion business model to get pieces similar to the ones presented by the world’s top fashion designers on their shelves in no time flat. When new collections are shown in the fashion capitals of the world, these stores use the buzz on the new creations to sell look-alike pieces for a much lower cost than the originals.
To achieve the goal of producing items quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively, retailers have employed several innovative new management, marketing and production techniques. A major part of the fast fashion concept is the exchange of information. This requires all levels of the clothing company to be in communication at all times, where in the past, each department was responsible for its own duties and there wasn’t much interaction between them. Store employees and managers receive feedback from customers and are able to report on which designs and trends sell the best. Their accounts are shared with market specialists, designers, buyers and production staff. With efficient links between the creative team and the production, warehouse and distributor staff at the company, essential information is shared in a timely manner, allowing the company to get the latest designs on their shelves in record time.
The business model mould for fast fashion was first perfected by Spanish clothing retailer Zara. By trying out unconventional methods of design, production and distribution, Zara began a revolution in the fashion retail industry. These days, Zara has the ability to take an item from the design stage to the store in just

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    INFO0331

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages

    There are several ingenious steps taken by Zara that proves both profitable and unprecedented. Zara has used technology to revolutionize their business, from buying the unprocessed cloth to determining which color die to use and what to make with that cloth. The technology process continues on the manufacturing lines and all the way to the final sale. But it does not stop there, it goes beyond the point of sale to question the reasons why a purchase was not made after a client expressed an interest in an item. The point of sale system provides real time data which is given immediate attention. PDAs are actively gathering information which is constantly been taken into consideration. The design strategy is another intuitive step. They do not follow custom catwalk fashion shows, instead they design based on customer demand. Manufacturing and logistics is a key contributor to their highly acclaimed success. The ability to have a product ready and on the shelves in ten days vice the competitor’s time of approximately three to nine month is where the strength of flipping their dollar lies and is accomplished mainly through vertical integration and technology orchestrated coordination of supplies. Deliver to replenish and deliver new stock is an expedited process, in some cases deliver is made overnight. Items placed on the shelves are readily picked up and nothing is ever marked down in a sale. Zara identify and manufacture the clothes customers want, get those products to market quickly, and eliminate costs related to advertising, inventory missteps, and markdowns…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zara's Business Model

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Zara’s business model closely linked customer demand to manufacturing and distribution. Inventory depended largely on the location of the store and what particular customers were buying. They understood that their consumer had a penchant for trend driven pieces, and that marketing and advertising efforts lengthened the lead-time. Thus their marketing budget was usually .3% of revenue, and Zara was able to get high fashion looks in stores while they were still hot. Zara didn’t need to convince their consumers to buy with advertising and marketing efforts, rather they changed 75% of their inventory every three to four weeks, so consumers knew to constantly frequent the store for up to date items.…

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The changing dynamics of the fashion industry since then, such as the fading of mass production, increase in number of fashion seasons, and modified structural characteristics in the supply chain have forced retailers to desire low cost and flexibility in design, quality, delivery and speed to market (Doyle, Moore, and Morgan 2006).…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fast Fashion has a rapid turnover rate of inventory. This makes you feel that if you do not purchase these fashions now, they will not be in fashion next week. Fast fashion retailers such as H&M, Zara, and Forever 21 use this strategy to get an advantage over other retailers. Where it used to take months for current trends to show up in the stores, fast fashion retailers make it possible to have current trends in their stores within weeks. While targeting young buyers, they are easily persuaded that the item will not be in fashion tomorrow. This can be compared to fruit being a perishable good as well. If you wait an extra day or two to eat a banana, it will be too ripe to eat. When thinking of this same concept in fashion, the current trends will not be in fashion tomorrow. This is easily demonstrated within fast fashion retailers. This in turn promotes consumerism among young…

    • 758 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Zara Retail Chain

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Zara, Spanish clothing with retail chain throughout the world is probably the world's fastest growing retailer with almost a thousand stores. Zara has it own unique business model that enabled Zara to be compete with its competitors, and it's driven by Zara's "fast fashion" with its vertically integrated supply chain. Vertically integrated supply chain allowed Zara to successfully build up a strong retail chain combine with the forces of fast fashion. Vertically integrated supply chain enabled company's domination of a market by controlling all steps in the production process, from the extraction of raw materials through the manufacture and sale of the final product. (Martin, 1988) While fast fashion is all about the quick respond to clothing trend. Objective of assignment is to summarise the benefits of Zara's vertically integrated supply chain explaining how it supports the "fast fashion" model.…

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Zara: It for Fast Fashion

    • 1948 Words
    • 8 Pages

    The case study, Zara: IT for Fast Fashion, focuses on the retail giant, Inditex, and how its largest retail chain, Zara, has been so successful with their business model of high fashion, product variation, low cost, speed, and flexibility.…

    • 1948 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Marketing In Primark

    • 4958 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Barnes, L. and Lea-Greenwood, G. 2006. Fast fashioning the supply chain: shaping the research agenda. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management 10(3), pp.259- 271.…

    • 4958 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As of the present, fashion industry market is growing and booming with the presence of low cost fashion companies such as Zara and Topshop. These kinds of companies have the possibility to dominate the industry of today and in the future and the situation for competition in the fashion industry can be set on high demand on such products and services. Zara is recognized as the most successful fashion retailer in the world and Topshop is also making its mark as one of the fashion’s major success stories. These two leading fashion retailers have their own unique business model and have made huge impact in the fashion market industry. Thus, the research topic would be interesting, as it would contribute to better understanding of how fashion industry works nowadays.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Zara Fast Fashion

    • 1965 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Zara’s apparel offers a high level of fashion at a reasonable price, effectively appealing to the middle to middle-high class. It has grown into a successful company by providing fresh fashion with short lead times and a sense of scarcity for their products. Zara’s whole business model depends on its ability to have a quick response to almost every aspect of the fashion world. For example, Zara employs many trend seekers who are required to keep their eyes on the fashionable young individuals in order to gain an understanding of the latest fashions. This information is communicated to the design team, who must produce new items as quickly as possible. Zara does most of its manufacturing internally, which allows the designs to come to fruition in a timely manner and make their way to the store shelves before the trend ends.…

    • 1965 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Supply Chain Management

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Zara’s value proposition is ‘low-cost but high fashion’ together with the opportunity of having a new piece of clothing considered as ‘unique’ -that won’t be in the shop for more than 2 or 3 weeks. On short, as well the title of this paper states: ‘Responsive, High speed, Affordable fashion’. Stores are managed as small business, vertical communication and supply chain, so each manager knows exactly the demand and specific request, model and colour. This is a way of increasing efficiency, loyalty and customers satisfaction.…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fashion Industry Channels

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages

    When speaking about fashion one mostly refers to luxury designer brands such as Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton which produce a vast variety of fashionable items namely apparel, leather goods, cosmetics, perfumes and accessories. However, companies such as Zara (Inditex), H&M or Diesel are also players in the fashion industry since they offer own designs and collections. For the purpose of this paper, the fashion industry shall contain players who design and market their own merchandise and shall focus on the clothing (apparel) sector only.…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    ‘Electronic commerce and the Internet are fundamentally changing the nature of supply chains, and redefining how consumers learn about, select, purchase, and use products and services’ (Sreenivas, 2007)…

    • 3139 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fast-fashion practices, or a retail concept centered around producing up-to-date product quickly and inexpensively directly inspired by recent designer collections and trends, account for roughly 60% of the sales in the American fashion industry last year alone. This includes retailers like Zara, which is infamous for their quick turn around and almost synonymous with the term “fast-fashion”, Gap, Banana Republic, J.Crew, H&M, Forever 21, TopShop, Urban Outfitters, Charolette Russe, Wet Seal, etc. This force is obviously beneficial to the American retail economy, however, it is causing modern designers and fashion houses to suffer.…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Fast fashion is used to describe clothing collections which are based on the latest fashion trends presented in each Fashion Week. Those trends are designed and manufactured quickly and in an affordable way to let mainstream shoppers to purchase fashionable item with a reasonable price. This strategy is being adopted by some large retails like H&M and Zara.…

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Zara Study Case

    • 5120 Words
    • 21 Pages

    The case describes how Zara, operating out of the Galician port of La Coruña in north-west Spain has managed to become a benchmark for speed and flexibility in the garment industry. The case offers an illustration of a fast-response global supply, production and retail network. In 2003 Zara was the only retailer that could deliver garments to its stores worldwide (507 in 33 countries) in just fifteen days after they were designed. It could do that because of its unique systems for product design, order administration, production, distribution and retailing. The unconventional approach that Zara often deploys in these areas provides interesting opportunities for discussion and learning.…

    • 5120 Words
    • 21 Pages
    Good Essays