Example Of Case Study On Observing And Branding Zara Store

Since Zara store in Villagio mall opened its doors, it has established itself as a serious contender in the fashion business. Its highly fashionable designs continue to maintain the high standards of the winning Zara brand. The Zara brand focusses on customer service. Zara store offers high-quality modern clothing, shoes and accessories for women, men and kids at competitive prices. They offer a range of clothing such as shorts, trousers, dresses, shirts, and blouses. These range of clothes are accompanied by shoes such as jelly shoes, rubber raised driving shoes, lace up shoes, casual shoes, mesh training shoes, patent ballerina shoes, slip on shoes, cloth shoes, heels, knit shoes, leather shoes and suede oxford shoes. The store also houses accessories such as pajamas, scarfs, tights, hats, swimsuits, boxers, socks, bibs, neckerchiefs and panties. Product ranges are renewed throughout the year, mostly after every four to five weeks. I view Zara’s clothing designs and concepts as innovation, creative and distinctively make one look trendy and elegant. A target market is a cohort of people or customers that a business is advertising and marketing its products to (Colette, 2006). Zara stores appeal to its target market through promotional activities and advertisement in the web. Zara store prefers to do most of its promotions through the appeal of its store and by word of mouth. Zara store dwells less on advertisement based marketing and more on online internet marketing. It targets a mass market since everyone is in the business of buying clothes, shoes and accessories.
When a customer purchases a product, Zara store requests for customer contacts and feedback on the item purchased and service provided. The distribution system of Zara store is high-tech right from the manufacturing plant. Zara store has effective information technology and communication which appeals to its target market. In addition, Zara store appeals to their target market through improving the daily operations of the business. I think their focus on product differentiation and excellent customer service is impeccable. Brand loyalty is whereby a customer repeatedly purchases products or services from a particular company. This may mean purchasing products and services even when competitors’ prices are cheaper. Brand loyalty may also be caused by lack of viable alternatives. There are different levels of brand loyalty including hard core loyals, shifting loyals, split loyals, and switchers. Hard core loyals are customers who buy the brand all the time. Shifting loyals are customers that move from one brand to another. Split loyals are customers that are loyal to two or three brands. Switchers are customers that move from one brand to another depending on their differences and bargains. Customers brand loyalty is influenced by customer’s satisfaction, brand trust, repeat purchase behavior, customer’s commitment and the apparent value of the customer. Zara is a strong, successful brand that has been hugely established all over the world. Zara store was received well and has gone to expand to twenty-three countries and two hundred and fifty stores. Zara brand loyalty is displayed by an average of seventeen visits per customer per year, unlike their competitors who have an average of three visits per customer per year. Zara store has curved up a niche for itself through providing highly fashionable products at moderate prices. In my opinion, customers are loyal to the Zara brand because of the affordable prices. Customer satisfaction involves companies providing products and services that meet and surpass the expectations of the customer. It affects company sales and profits. Customer satisfaction acts as an indicator of customer purchasing trends and loyalty (Nuri, 2010). Customer satisfaction is significant in reducing customer churn, reducing negative word of mouth, retaining customers, increasing customer lifetime value and is a point of differentiation from other competitors (Beard 2014). Zara store surpasses the expectations of customers through providing high fashionable designs at reasonable prices. Customer satisfaction at Zara is maximized through the production team adapting to the various seasonal trend changes. Zara store changes its products frequently to meet the different generation interests. Everything at Zara store starts with the customer and ends with the customer. Through a continuous stream of information from various retail chain stores, Zara store is able to understand the customers’ needs. Zara fulfills these customers’ needs through explicit segmentation and product differentiation. To my disbelief, Zara store treats clothes, shoes and accessories as perishable products that should frequently be changed with time to reflect the trend changes. This has incited me to regularly come to the store and not to hesitate purchasing since the item may not be available the next time I come into the store. Brand identity refers to how a company wants the customer to perceive the visual elements of the company such as their logo, colors, design, trademark, symbols, communication style and brand’s name. Brand identity is created by a company. It is the way a business wants the customer to perceive the brand or product and not necessarily the customers’ actual perception. The actual perception of the customers is known as the brand image. Selling of products becomes difficult when there is a negative gap between brand identity and brand image. The brand identity is important to consumers for it allows them to recognize and differentiate a company’s products and services from its competitors. Visual elements are crucial brand identifiers for they offer differentiation in an already overcrowded market (O'Connor, 2011). Zara stores are located in upscale locations, for instance, Zara store is located in Villagio mall which is a luxurious brand. Therefore, Zara store creates a brand identity that is luxurious but still has mid-level affordable prices. Although, Zara store has less expensive prices than other designers, they do not compromise on the quality of their finished products. The design of Zara store is closely linked to the customers (Kucukosmanoglu & Sensoy 2010). They rely on information and feedback obtained from customers in designing their products and concepts. To me, the gap between Zara store’s brand identity and brand image is a small one and is positive. Zara’s brand image is confident, unique and trendy. Its brand identity is market-oriented, flexible and highly reactive. Brand equity refers to an intangible asset that the customer relates to a product. Brand equity can be determined by brand extensions, customer attitudes and financial impact of the products. In regards to brand extension, Zara store was launched successfully through the Zara brand. Strong brand equity is manifested in the Zara brand through its customers’ attitudes. Zara store has a customer based brand equity model. This model enables comparison between non- directly measurable elements and ranking of intangible criteria such as purchase intentions and consumers’ feelings. Brand equity is positively related to price insensitivity, market share, consumer preferences and purchase intensions. However, in harmful situations, brand equity is related to product resilience. Zara store uses the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to measure the consumer based brand equity. In my opinion, the consumer based brand equity model of Zara store shows that they are concerned with what the consumer cares about.

References

Beard, R. (2014). Why customer satisfaction is important (6 reasons). Retrieved from http://blog.clientheartbeat.com/why-customer-satisfaction-is-important/
Colette, B. (2006)."Promotion: Identify Your Target Market." Farmers Guardian. 16 May 2006
Kucukosmanoglu, A. and Sensoy, E. (2010). Customer Satisfaction: A Central Phenomenon in Marketing. Retrieved from http://www.academia.edu/1977823/CUSTOMER _SATISFACTION_A_CENTRAL_PHENOMENON_IN_MARKETING
O'Connor, Z. (2011) "Logo colour and differentiation: A new application of environmental colour mapping". Color Research & Application, 36 (1), pp. 55–60.
Villagio mall (2011). Retrieved from http://www.villaggioqatar.com/index.php/shopping /furniture/204-zara-store
Zara website http://www.zara.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/store/ch/de