Pitt Street in Sydney and Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne Essay

Apart from Zara, Inditex also owns international labels Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarious, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterqà ¼e. The formula for Zara is simple: latest catwalk trends reproduced, plus new stocks delivered to stores in fewer than 15 days, plus giggle-inducing prices, equates to global success. â€Å"Our decision to come to Australia now is based on two main reasons. Firstly, our operations are at that capability level of supplying to a country like Australia, which is quite far away from our headquarters in Spain. With new stocks needing to be sent every two weeks, we had to be absolutely sure we could handle this new amount of orders. â€Å"Secondly, we were waiting for the right locations to become available, and now we [have] found two excellent spots in Sydney and Melbourne and were happy to launch into Australia.† Fleur Madden-Topley, managing director of PR agencies Red and Blue by Red, feels that Australian consumers have also created the demand for the brand’s entrance onto our shores Touted as one of the world’s most successful logistics operations by the Harvard Business Review, the production line is executed like clockwork, where lorries move in and out on schedule to ensure each store gets its fortnightly update of stocks right on time. Echevarria oversees all international marketing activities and media relationships, engaging assistance from a local public relations firm only during momentous occasions like new store openings. Zara’s closest competitors, such as Swedish label H&M, the UK’s Top Shop and the US’s Gap, spend typically three to five percent of annual revenues on advertising campaigns, and have a penchant for involving celebrities, either in their advertising or their product lines. Top Shop has its sought after Kate Moss collection, while H&M has limited pieces designed by the likes of Madonna and Kylie Minogue. Gap is well-known for attracting star names, such as Lucy Liu, Jennifer Aniston and John Mayer, to appear in its advertisements. Our store locations and window fronts are our biggest form of advertising Zara tailors its products to each city â€Å"Zara has effectively utilised word of mouth, or strategic public relations, in building and maintaining its brand. So while rivals outsource to Asia, Zara makes its most fashionable items — half of all its merchandise — at a dozen company-owned factories in Spain. Clothes with a longer shelf life, such as basic T-shirts, are outsourced to low-cost suppliers, mainly in Asia and Turkey. Zara’s nerve center is an 11,000-square-foot hall at its headquarters in Arteixo, a town of 25,000 in Galicia. That’s where hundreds of twentysomething designers, buyers, and production planners work in tightly synchronized teams. It is there that the company does all of its design and distribution and half of its production. The concentrated activity enables it to move a dress, blouse, or coat from drawing board to shop floor in just two weeks — less than a quarter of the industry average. Inditex says it works with unions and other organizations â€Å"to have the most respectful supply chain† and audits all of its partners every year, but like most major fashion companies that outsource the manufacturing of their clothes, it has received its share of complaints about factory conditions