Zara's - Customer Level Service
Zara’s – Customer Service Level
Any successfully marketing strategy will place the customer in the center of a circle surrounded by the four P’s (product, place, promotion and price) understanding that the customer is not part of the marketing mix, but rather the target of all marketing efforts.
Zara’s product is a physical good; therefore place requires logistics decisions in addition to the design and manufacture of the product itself. Zara’s home base is Spain. It is there (for the most part) that their clothing line is designed, created, manufactured and distributed. As an aside, they have only two locations in Spain so should something happen surrounding these areas the distribution of their clothing would be greatly hampered. Zara realizes that the customers don’t care about the channel of distribution, what they do care about is the customer service level. Zara’s customers have come to expect store deliveries twice a week and will plan their shopping accordingly. If the channel didn’t deliver when expected, then the customer would be disappointed, therefore, this is extremely important to the overall success of Zara. Not only have the customers come to expect the delivery days, they also know that when the clothing arrives it is immediately ready to be placed on the sales floor pressed, tagged and ready for sale, and probably will not be replenished so they buy on the spot. Most of us as consumers are completely unaware of the logistics involved in getting products into the store for sale as it is invisible to us and only noticed when things go wrong. Zara’s customers enjoy very good service at a good price which is a combination that is hard to find.
Nearly 60% of all the goods produced by Zara are produced in house. Outside the distribution center in La Coruña fabric is cut and dried by robots on 23 automated factories. The firm makes 40% of its own fabric and purchases most of its dye from its own subsidiaries. Half the cloth remains
Any successfully marketing strategy will place the customer in the center of a circle surrounded by the four P’s (product, place, promotion and price) understanding that the customer is not part of the marketing mix, but rather the target of all marketing efforts.
Zara’s product is a physical good; therefore place requires logistics decisions in addition to the design and manufacture of the product itself. Zara’s home base is Spain. It is there (for the most part) that their clothing line is designed, created, manufactured and distributed. As an aside, they have only two locations in Spain so should something happen surrounding these areas the distribution of their clothing would be greatly hampered. Zara realizes that the customers don’t care about the channel of distribution, what they do care about is the customer service level. Zara’s customers have come to expect store deliveries twice a week and will plan their shopping accordingly. If the channel didn’t deliver when expected, then the customer would be disappointed, therefore, this is extremely important to the overall success of Zara. Not only have the customers come to expect the delivery days, they also know that when the clothing arrives it is immediately ready to be placed on the sales floor pressed, tagged and ready for sale, and probably will not be replenished so they buy on the spot. Most of us as consumers are completely unaware of the logistics involved in getting products into the store for sale as it is invisible to us and only noticed when things go wrong. Zara’s customers enjoy very good service at a good price which is a combination that is hard to find.
Nearly 60% of all the goods produced by Zara are produced in house. Outside the distribution center in La Coruña fabric is cut and dried by robots on 23 automated factories. The firm makes 40% of its own fabric and purchases most of its dye from its own subsidiaries. Half the cloth remains