Zara's Entry to India.. What say u..?

In fact I wish to do quite a bit of research into this one. But however, this thought has been boiling in my belly since quite some time, so I’m putting it on the blog. Now for those who don’t know what Zara is; well as a primer, you can say that ZARA is one of the very prominent fashion brands especially in the European countries.

And since the era of retail dawns upon India, many brands have started shifting their faces towards the Indian sub-continent. Zara I believe must be one of them. I don’t have many news clippings to prove that they are seriously looking about foraying into India, but I’m sure they’re looking at the options.

Now allow me to tell what’s so special about Zara??? Typically, any firm that’s into fashion apparels follows a 12 month planning period. That means in any normal nicely running mill, Arvind Mills let’s say, starts its design phase for any particular season 12 months in advance. Thus, we can safely assume that the designers at Arvind Mills have begun the designing apparels for the summer of 2008. Cool no?

Well, for any layman this would sound like really hunky dory, but in real fashion terms, this 12 month-in-advance cycle actually sucks! And the reason is quite simple. Fashion is an ever changing phenomenon. And typically any fashion house can be called successful if it is able to respond quickly to the customers’ changing preferences with respect to fashion! And after knowing the kind of design cycle Arvind Mills follows, you certainly can’t call them as a responsive fashion house. In fact any fashion house of India can’t be called ‘responsive’ to consumer fashion preferences, since most of them follow the cycle that Arvind Mill does.

Thus, we can say that in India, it’s the fashion house that defines fashion for the people rather than the people determining what fashion should be! Quite eerie isn’t it? However, surprisingly, we don’t seem to realize the fact. And we quite easily accept what the fashion houses churn out for us.

This is where Zara comes in. Zara’s responsiveness towards the current fashion trends is as fast as 14 days max! That is, it senses the new fashion trends and is able to deliver designs pertaining to the upcoming fashion and hits the stores within 14 days! From fiber to fashion within 14 days! I think this is what we call as responsiveness.

How does this happen is sort of a complicated thing. It ranges from phone calls from every retailer to the head-office to online tracking of sales and stuff like that to a superb supply chain system. I won’t bore you on all this stuff, but my point is will this brand work if bought to India?

Let’s look at a few statistics to lure you into believing that it will work in India! Zara typically produces around 12,000 designs throughout the year, it produces designs in smaller quantities but produces a variety of designs. Which means lower quantity per design thus no off-season discounts or clearance sales necessary, and variety means more choices for the customer.

It is said that if you go to a Zara outlet and you like an apparel, the store attendant would prompt you to pick it up at that time only, since there are high chances that it would be sold out when you return back in a few days if you plan to pick it up later!

Also, there are around 200 designers who design the garments from fashion inputs received though phone calls from hundreds of Zara outlets every day. Ideally, there is an addition of 1-2 styles every week on a Zara portfolio.

After telling you all this, quite obviously you will tend to believe that Zara should certainly come to India isn’t it?

I say it shouldn’t. Here’s why.

One, there isn’t a sizable amount of population of India that changes its wardrobe every season. Most people don’t even really care about fashion specifics. In fact, there is a large part of the population that waits for the end season sale or the clearance sale to get their hands on the favorite brands. Fashion takes a back seat.
Thus, in this demographic build-up where people are not oh-so fashion crazy to change their pants every 3 weeks, the responsiveness, the 200 designers sitting in Spain and the supply chain counts for nothing at all.

You’re trying to give something to the consumer, and that too to a level he hasn’t matured.

Is it wise? I don’t think so.

What say??