Zara Case Study

Question 1

Which factors influence the behaviour of the consumer in purchasing the products of Zara?

a) Zara is considered to be one of the biggest companies which follow the “Fast Fashion” business model. Fast Fashion companies, ‘recognize and respond to fashion trends very quickly, create products that mirror the trends and get those products into shelves much faster and more frequently than the industry norm. (Zara Case, p.1) Zara needs just two weeks to develop a new product and get it into stores. One of its biggest successes it’s its ability to spot emerging trends and react quickly. For every consumer however, there is a consumer decision process model that is defined by seven steps: recognition, search for information, pre-purchase, purchase, consumption, post-consumption, evaluation and divestment. Regarding the consumer behaviour, Zara gives the chance to customers to determine production. That means that Zara has modified consumers’ behaviour by observing the demands of the customers and supply the specific products. The company ensured that the stores are stocked with the products that the customers wanted at that point of time. Because of Zara’s rapid responsiveness to the customers’ needs, each product that is sold is nearly unique. That’s one of the reasons that turned Zara customers into serious impulse buyers. They know that if they don’t purchase the specific garment right away, they may never find it again in the future. This actually, creates to the customer a feeling of indirect coercion based on the fear of loss. Another factor that influences the behaviour of Zara’s customers is that the initial price of an item at the start of a selling season is not very high. As a result, when the discount period is coming, the discount they offer is not particularly deep because of the reasonable initial price. Consequently, this factor prevents Zara’s customers to wait for the discount period. Instead when customers see something they like,...