Zara Marketing Mix

The most important dimension of the marketing mix is the product the company offers. Zara offers apparels for men, women and children. Zara’s main offering – apparels for women is divided among three categories – Zara Woman offering clothes in accordance with latest runway trends, TRF catering to teenagers and young women and Zara Basic offering timeless classics like jeans, t-shirts, etc. Zara introduces collections in two slots – Spring Summer and Fall Winter along with replenishing its stores throughout the year with new styles and patterns depending upon consumer demand. The collections all over the world are mostly similar for Zara apart from some exceptions like United Arab Emirates where clothes are designed complying with the religion

Zara’s strategy has always been on using its money to improve its product offering and using its stores as a means of advertisement. The brand shells out huge amounts of money in acquiring prime locations for its stores and designing them. Zara has always focused on commercially crowded streets like the Oxford Street in London, Champs-Elysees in Paris or the recent lease of a 50000 square feet carpet space in South Mumbai’s most premium location of Flora Fountain. Zara also places great emphasis on its carefully curated shop windows displaying latest fashion trends. Zara disregards advertising as a promotion technique apart from briefly advertising its sales and markdowns in newspapers twice a year. Zara places high importance on word of mouth as an effective marketing tool.

Zara’s promotion strategy contrasts with H&M and UNIQLO as both these companies resort to conventional methods like advertisements via television commercials, print advertising in magazines and collaborating with celebrities for endorsing their products. H&M also promotes its clothes by publishing a catalogue showcasing its latest apparels for the season. As for sales and markdowns, UNIQLO and H&M also have two distinct sales throughout the year but the markdown margin is slightly higher than that of

Although H&M offers clothing and accessories for all age groups they place greater emphasis on women as they shop more for them but also end up shopping for children and husbands. H&M also targets teenagers, college graduates and young consumers wanting to build their wardrobe at an affordable cost while keeping in mind the ongoing fashion trends. Also, wearing fashionable clothing plays an important role in their social life. Women shopping at H&M are motivated to buy clothes because of their prices or wanting an equivalent garment similar to one of a social blogger or a celebrity. H&M seeks to position itself as a brand providing fast fashion at reasonable prices for all age groups. The customers at H&M are not very quality conscious as they only wear pieces while they are in fashion and tend to discard them more often once they are out of fashion.

UNIQLO offers apparels for both males and females who range in age. UNIQLO has a broader target market as it sells basics that can attract everyone. People who shop at UNIQLO purchase quality products at an extremely reasonable price. UNIQLO customer typically looks for basic everyday wear classics in a wide variety of colors. The consumers here are quality conscious and do not shift to newer trends on a daily basis. UNIQLO has positioned itself as a brand that offers quality clothing for all