Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Global Sourcing
Global Sourcing
1093/jeg/lbm035
Advance Access Published on 23 October 2007
Abstract
Until recently, Zara, a major international clothing retailer and pioneer of ‘fast fashion’
principles, kept almost half of its production in Spain and Portugal, earning the
reputation of being one of the exceptions to globalization. Since the 1980s, the
Keywords: clothing retailers, supply chains, global sourcing, fast fashion, Zara
JEL classifications: F23, D21, L14, L25, L67
Date submitted: 22 November 2006 Date accepted: 17 September 2007
1. Introduction
International retailers of clothing are believed to be the key drivers of the globalization
of the clothing industry (Gereffi, 2005a). They fuel globalization via global sourcing,
thereby contributing to the flight of manufacturing jobs from the West. However, in the
literature, the variety of ways in which retailers are becoming involved in global
sourcing has not yet been thoroughly explored. Berger (2005) observes a real diversity
among the companies trying to survive and prosper in different industries, but the
subject has not received sufficient attention specifically with regard to the clothing
retailers—especially when compared with, for example, the recent attention given to the
supply chain dynamics of food and general merchandise retailers (see Coe and Wrigley,
2007; Dawson, 2007 and the other articles of the recent special issue of this journal
entitled Transnational Retail, Supply Networks and the Global Economy). In this
article, I consider the extent to which Zara, a major international clothing retailer and
pioneer of ‘fast fashion’ principles, provides evidence concerning the variety of ways
in which retailers source globally. The findings are somewhat contradictory. On the
*Milano the New School for Management and Urban Policy, The New School University, New York,
NY 10011, USA.
email5tokatlin@newschool.edu4
ß The Author (2007). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
22 . Tokatli
one hand, Zara, as part of a group called Industria de Diseno Textil (Inditex) that has
17 manufacturing subsidiaries in La Caruña and Barcelona, looks relatively unique
when compared with many other fast fashion retailers that do not own manufacturing
facilities and instead network with suppliers—mostly located in partially industrialized
countries. On the other hand, the supply lines of Zara’s production chain now extend
into many such countries—from Morocco to Vietnam, a development which provides
strong evidence for the effects on the retailer of what Berger (2005) calls the ‘cross-
fertilization of business practices’. As a result, Zara is now less of an ‘exception to
globalization’—a reputation that the retailer gained as a result of its business model,
which some believed had the potential to ‘shape the future geography of jobs’
(Newsweek, 2001, 36; see also New Yorker, 2000 and Christian Science Monitor, 2001).
1 The concept of fast fashion is centrally related to the quick response considerations of retailers whose
emergence was traced by Abernathy et al. (1999, 2006) to the mid-1980s. However, the quick response
demands were then essentially only revolving around replenishment dynamics. There are differences
between the quick response considerations revolving around replenishment dynamics and the quick
response considerations driven by fast fashion dynamics (where there is low or no replenishment). For a
further discussion of these differences and their theoretical and policy implications, see Tokatli and
Kızılgün (2008, in press).
Global sourcing—the case of Zara . 23
trends spotted at fashion shows and by cues taken from mainstream consumers (Agins,
1999; Reinach, 2005). They then transform these trends into products that can be put
on the market almost immediately, freeing themselves and the consumers from the
‘seasonal collection trap,’ and in the process changing the conditions surrounding
production (Reinach, 2005, 48).
Fast fashion requires that, first, the retailers have rapidly increasing numbers of
stores worldwide—preferably directly owned and operated outlets in secure countries
and franchised outlets in risky ones—so that they can reach more and more customers
around the globe. Second, there is the need to connect customers’ demand with the
upstream operations of design, procurement, production and distribution. This means
the development of an information infrastructure with highly responsive communica-
relationships (Dunford, 2006). There are now implications for cities as well: for
example, New York’s Fifth Avenue, once home to haute couture and designer stores
such as Gucci, Prada, Versace and Ferragamo is now becoming a street of fast fashion.2
2 See, for example, ‘The new face of fifth: populist movement hits luxe street of retailers’ (WWD, 2004). The
retailers behind this movement are Abercrombie & Fitch, Zara, H&M, Liz Claiborne, Gap, Banana
Republic, Club Monaco and possibly Mango and American Eagle Outfitters. See also The New York
Times (2005).
Global sourcing—the case of Zara . 25
US manufacturer of men’s suits looks for these tailors in Turkey and employs them in
its Tennessee factory. In fact, the increasing competencies of suppliers in unlikely
countries, especially indicated by the involvement of these suppliers in design, have now
been acknowledged by others. For example, Bair (2006, 2237) has recently stated that
full-package manufacturers ‘occasionally contribute to . . . the design of a particular
garment’. Similarly, Gereffi (2005b) has recounted a change in the definition of full
package production in the Laguna region of Mexico, where some jeans-manufacturing
firms have started to depend on their own teams of designers. Also, in a recent article,
Tewari (2006, 2325) observes the ‘striking emergence of design’ as a source of
comparative advantage in the Indian clothing industry.
Second, in the last five to six years, there has been a transformation in the consumer
There may have been a time when fashion was constructed like a pyramid, with haute couture
at the apex, designer ready-to-wear just below, challenger brands in the middle, and a big slab
of mass retail at the base. This is no longer the case today . . . Consumers . . . rather than being
content to stay in their allotted sectors, scurry promiscuously from one to the other (Tungate,
2005).
On the one hand, Chanel, Dior, Gucci and other haute couture or ready-to-wear
designer brands have weathered the storm of the 1990s, which caused Agins (1999) to
write that fashion was finished: in fact, sales of these luxury brands have surged since
2002–2003. On the other hand, H&M, Zara and Mango all doubled their sales between
1998 and the end of 2002, despite slowing growth in the market (the market researcher
Mintel cited in Tungate, 2005). This is partly because consumers are now told to project
the message that they are intelligent people, in charge of their own image—not dazzled
by marketing. This requires paying for a designer item, and then seeing no shame in
adding a trendy but inexpensive item from a fast fashion retailer, and completing them
with yet another item, say, from a young designer. This trend is supposed to turn
consumers into their own stylists and end the era of slavish brand worship.3 Partly
because of this, fast fashion is now gradually ‘winning over consumers of all ages and
buying power throughout Europe’, as indicated by the fact that fast fashion sales
increased by more than 45% between 2001 and 2005, compared with a market average
of 3% (Reinach, 2005, 55; analysts at Fashion Trak cited in The Observer, 2005).
Partially industrialized countries enter the picture of fast fashion not only as
manufacturing sites but also as important markets. For some time, Hong Kong has been
considered the most important emerging market for fashion brands—fast or not. Then
there are also Brazil, Russia, India and China (designated by the acronym BRIC) which
represent fashion industry’s ‘juiciest targets’. China especially, with a population of 1.3
3 In the words of the marketing director of H&M, ‘[y]ou can dress from head to toe in Gucci if you like –
that proves you’re rich, but it doesn’t prove you have taste. It’s more imaginative to wear your Gucci with
some H&M. That’s why Vogue readers are among our most loyal clients’ (Tungate, 2005, 45). Similarly, in
the words of the chairman and chief executive officer of Abercrombie & Fitch: ‘The way people buy
fashion has changed. They’ll buy a Gucci jacket and Abercrombie & Fitch jeans. That’s why we think
we’re the perfect fit for Fifth Avenue.’ (WWD, 2004).
Global sourcing—the case of Zara . 27
billion and an ever-growing middle class, ‘makes retailers’ pulses quicken and their palms
sweat’ (Tungate, 2005, 198). Pierre Cardin organized its first fashion show in Beijing in
1993. Hugo Boss opened its first store in China in 1994 and now has more than 60 outlets
there (Tungate, 2005), while Ermenegildo Zegna has over 30 sales points (mostly wholly
owned and some franchised) with a turnover of around $25 million in 2001 (Verga, 2003
cited in Reinach, 2005). Benetton, Ferragamo, Max Mara, Furla, Prada, Armani, Bruno
Magli, Gucci and Versace also have stores in China (Reinach, 2005).
These countries ‘quicken pulses’ as manufacturing sites as well. The Italians have
been setting up production networks in the Jiangsu and Zhejiand provinces of China for
the last 30 years. More interestingly, according to Reinach (2005), several of the most
prestigious ‘made in Italy’ brands are, in reality, entirely manufactured in China. China
4 For partially industrialized country firms, manufacturing own brands (at least for the domestic market)
simultaneously with manufacturing on order for others is now so common that the term CM (contract
manufacturer) needs to be re-defined [see Tewari (2006) for the Indian case]. Berger (2005) still gives the
following definition: ‘a company that manufactures on order for a lead or brand firm but has no brands of
its own’ (xiii).
28 . Tokatli
During this period, retailers and brand-owners from Germany, France and Britain had
already outsourced production to cheaper countries and some had even paid costs as
pioneers. It had become clear that what mattered was not just labor costs but rather
unit labor costs. For example, when Ermenegildo Zegna (Zegna), the Italian retailer of
men’s tailored suits, opened a factory in Greece in 1975, this turned out to be a mistake:
We believed that Greece with its very low labor cost would provide . . . advantages . . . But we
hit many problems, the main one being that during harvest times the women working in the
factory just walked out and we literally had no workers for weeks! We realized that this just
would not work and that we had to be realistic and cut our losses. After two years we closed
the operations.’ (Angelo Zegna cited in Schwass, 2000).5
in Tungate, 2005, 51). Full-size store windows set up in the Inditex headquarters
building, complete with display platforms with variable lighting, show what Zara’s
actual store windows all around the world would look like ‘at night and on dim days
and bright’ (Forbes.com, 2001). Actual window presentations are exactly like the
presentations created in La Caruña, but different Zara stores in different cities still
manage not to stock precisely the same products. The clothes are supposed to encourage
individuality and reflect the profile of specific groups of customers at specific places.
More importantly, Zara is ‘whisking budget interpretations of catwalk styles into its
stores with breathtaking speed’ (Tungate, 2005, 50). A designer dress photographed on
a model during fashion week does not arrive in department stores for months—but
something very like it can be spotted hanging in Zara in a couple of weeks (Tungate,
Styles, colors, fabrics—we don’t guess any of these things. We are a business catering to
demand, and we’ve never made any secret of that. But we need to know what the trends are, so
we follow them through magazines, fashion shows, movies and city streets. We use trend-
trackers and forecasting companies. We keep our eyes open (a press officer of Inditex cited in
Tungate, 2005, 52).
Spotting trends and copying ‘the whim of the day’ are now easier thanks to digital
photography and websites such as Firstview.com that post photos of new couture
minutes after being shown on the catwalk to be downloaded by subscribed members
(Financial Times, 2004; International Herald Tribune, 2005).
In the 1990s, long-term sales forecasts were already becoming difficult—one music
video was sometimes enough to generate a sudden wave of fashion. Thus, instead of
investing in influencing trends and forecasting sales, Zara invested in, first, an
information infrastructure with highly responsive communication channels, and
second, a short, tight, flexible and innovative supply chain, that some called the
‘rapid- fire’ supply chain or the ‘vertically-integrated dash’ (Ferdows et al., 2004; The
Observer, 2005; tdctrade.com, 2001).
‘Trend spotters’ constantly traveled the world or surfed the Internet in search of
trends and ideas, and Zara’s store managers instantly sent customer feedback via
handheld devices, keeping Zara’s in-house designers abreast of fast-changing trends.
Stores were not only sales points but also Zara’s ‘eyes and ears’ ‘[I]f enough shoppers
7 The French organization representing haute couture and ready to wear designers has for sometime been
calling for a crackdown to stop the designers’ fall and spring collections being imitated by fast fashion
retailers and presented in shops within days of fashion shows (Financial Times, 2004).
30 . Tokatli
ask[ed] for a top or shirt in coral rather than the available turquoise, Zara [could] often
have that color in stores in less than two weeks’ (tdctrade.com). The tight and
innovative supply chain made this possible and helped Zara cull less desirable
merchandise.8 After receiving real time information, Zara’s 200 plus designers were able
to decide on the designs very quickly, finalize the choice of fabrics, and send out dyed
and cut fabrics for sewing and finishing to 400 near-by suppliers in Spain and Portugal,
where labor costs were lowest in Europe.
By means of this process, Zara was able to judge almost 30,000 designs each year, from
which 11,000 items (in five to six colors and 5–7 sizes) were selected (which translated
into 12–16 collections), dwarfing the traditional fall and spring collections of high
fashion designers. In fact, Zara’s performance eclipsed those of other fast fashion
8 One innovation being the acquisition of fabrics via its own buying office in Beijing in only four colors
and postponing dying and printing until close to manufacture at Zara’s own facilities in Spain.
9 Zara is reported to collect 85% of the full ticket price while the industry average is 60–70 %.
10 Receiving and displaying new clothing items twice a week is still impressive today, even though there are
now many other fast fashion retailers in the market. For example, the stores of the US-based
Anthropologie (a Philadelphia-based retailer with other brands called Urban Outfitters and Free People)
receive and display new clothing items every day of the week except for the weekend. (This information
was provided to me by an Anthropologie manager in New York in April 2006. A few days later, a sales
person confirmed that shipments were indeed received every morning during weekdays: ‘you should see
what a mad house the store becomes every single morning before we open the doors to customers.’)
Similarly, the German Esprit (originally from San Francisco) considers over 20,000 designs a year before
selecting the most marketable ones, a number not as large as that of Zara perhaps but comparable.
11 The Swedish H&M has already taken the idea of fast fashion to the next level: ‘disposable fashion’—the
practice of selling low-quality versions of the latest designs (so that some of the items become ripped as
customers try them on) somehow manages to make H&M even more profitable than Zara. The BBC
credits journalist Hilary Alexander for the phrase ‘disposable fashion’. This was also my independent
observation when, one afternoon in April 2006, I entered an H&M store in midtown Manhattan: the first
dress I touched was already ripped at the shoulder.
Global sourcing—the case of Zara . 31
Behind the unusually quick rate of delivery was Zara’s centralized distribution center,
where products were inspected and immediately shipped in accordance with time zones
using a logistics system whose software was designed by the company’s own teams. The
time between receiving an order at the distribution center and the delivery of the goods
to the store was, on average, 24 hours for European shops and a maximum of 48 hours
for American and Asian stores. Moreover, Zara shipments were 98.9% accurate with
less than 0.5% shrinkage, partly due to the practice of having all items prepriced and
tagged. Also, most items were shipped hung on racks so that store managers could put
them on display the moment they were delivered, without having to first iron them
(Ferdows et al., 2004).
Zara’s practises of sending a half-empty truck across Europe, paying for airfreight
‘inexorable force of globalization,’ and reverse ‘the long exodus of manufacturing jobs
from the West’ (Newsweek, 2001, 36).
In retrospect, it is possible to argue that Zara, regarded as a possible exception, was
less impressive than it initially appeared in the early 2000’s. This was not just because
only approximately half of the garments sold at Zara stores were actually manufactured
at home (either in Inditex’s own vertically integrated facilities in Galicia in northwestern
Spain or by a large number of near-by suppliers located in Spain and Portugal12), but
also because this practice was not necessarily ‘a moral stance’ (a company spokesman
cited in Christian Science Monitor, 2001, 8). The decision makers of Zara were simply
following a business model which required Zara to take only a few weeks to
manufacture clothes so that frequent deliveries to stores became a possibility.
12 One source reports that as early as 2000, 56% of production of Inditex was done externally, not in
house—53% of which being in Asia, in countries neighboring Europe and rest of the world (Fraiman
et al., 2002).
13 See http://www.forbes.com/global/2001/0528/024, 4.
14 The order of the first 40 countries is interesting (Cyprus was entered long before Italy, Mexico was
entered long before Switzerland). The following is the order of country entries after Spain, Portugal,
USA and France: Mexico (1992), Greece (1993), Belgium and Sweden (1994), Malta (1995), Cyprus
(1996), Norway, Turkey, Japan and Israel (1997), Argentina, UK, Venezuela, Lebanon, United Arab
Emirates and Kuwait (1998), The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Canada,
Brazil, Chile and Uruguay (1999), Andorra, Qatar, Austria and Denmark (2000) and Puerto Rico,
Jordan, Eire, Iceland, Luxemburg, Czech Republic and Italy (2001). Zara stores are mostly owned by
Inditex and only franchised in risky countries.
15 Because I have no inside information concerning the circumstances which surrounded the company’s
IPO decision in 2001 [partly because, as Newsweek (2001) puts it, Inditex is a ‘secretive’ company], I need
to point out the somewhat speculative nature of my interpretation here.
Global sourcing—the case of Zara . 33
and also signed an agreement with a Hong Kong garment supply agency called Bigi,
which basically meant that designs would originate in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia,
Indonesia and the Indo–Chinese peninsula with manufacturing on the Chinese
mainland (cited in tdctrade.com, 2001). ‘[S]uits from the Asian and especially China
markets [were already] the most appreciated among Spanish shoppers’ (tdctrade.com,
2001). We do not know whether the Forbes Magazine’s warning about a possible crack-
down of EU bureaucrats on Europe’s informal economies played a role in these
changing sourcing strategies; but it is likely that it did.
The retailer now has more than 1000 stores in 64 countries, the latest store opening in
Guatemala in 2007. The total number of stores belonging to the parent company
Inditex is currently 3200 in 65 countries, with Zara contributing the largest number
16 The countries that were added after 2001 are El Salvador, Finland, Dominican Republic, Singapore and
Switzerland (2002), Russia, Malaysia, Slovenia and Slovakia (2003), Hong Kong, Morocco, Estonia,
Latvia, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania and Panama (2004), Costa Rica and Indonesia (2005) and China,
Serbia, Sweden and Tunisia (2006). Inditex’s other brands included Pull and Bear (since 1991), Massimo
Dutti (since 1991), Bershka (since 1998), Stradivarius (since 1999), Oysho (2001), Zara Home (2003) and
Kiddy’s Class (whose name was changed to Skhuaban in 2006 before the brand was launched in Greece).
Inditex’s first South Korean store will be opened by the end of the current financial year through a joint
venture with the local retail giant Lotte (see Inditex’s web site as well as various articles in Forbes.com).
17 The latest financial information about Inditex include 6.74 billion Euros revenue in 2006, 11.86% net
profit margins, 15.99% operating margins, 18.08% return on average assets, 29.52% return on averaging
equity, and 59,793 employees (source: Forbes.com, 2006).
34 . Tokatli
(more bullish than its peer H&M) following its 2005 results (see Forbes.com, 2006).
However, some observers are skeptical: the question of whether it will be ‘trickier to
cater for instant fashion whims,’ as Inditex moves further from home, is now being
openly asked. In fact, some wonder how many more million dollars Zara will make
before ‘getting into the cemetery of European retailers’ (International Herald Tribune,
2005, 9). Behind this concern is the idea that Zara was until recently unusually
profitable because of the success of its managers at not only adjusting to ‘quixotic
consumer demands’ but also at ‘resisting management fads and ever-shifting industry
practices’ (Ferdows et al., 2004, 107). In the words of a Spanish management
consultant, Zara did not achieve its success by imitating the business practices of other
successful retailers, but rather by ‘being contrarian’ to industry norms (cited in just-
18 Inditex’s 2005 Annual Report lists 17 manufacturing subsidiaries (mostly textile-design and finishing
operations with some in-house apparel production) in Spain and one manufacturing subsidiary in
Lithuania.
19 In 2002, Benetton still procured 70% of its production in Italy, 30% of which was made in-house
(Berger, 2005). Three years later, in 2005, Benetton opened an office in Hong Kong partly in order to
monitor the Chinese suppliers upon which it increasingly relied (The Economist, 2006, 73).
20 On an afternoon in April 2006, I checked many labels in a New York Zara store which had three
departments: Basic, Woman’s and Men’s. The manager told me that new shipments were displayed every
Tuesday and Friday. The pieces made in Spain and Portugal did not constitute the majority of the
garments in the store. In fact, the most elegant and relatively more expensive ($129–$149, as opposed to
Zara’s usual $59–$79 range) women’s garments (silk and linen jackets and dresses) were all made in
Morocco. There were also denim garments from Turkey, leather jackets from Pakistan and embroidered
garments from India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and China. In the men’s department, there were suits from
Turkey, Portugal, Morocco, and Lithuania, shirts from these countries as well as Romania and Brazil,
knitted sweaters from Bulgaria and swimwear from Morocco. The sales person who offered me help was
surprised to see the ‘Made in Bulgaria’ label on a knitted sweater: after reading the label, he quickly
explained ‘that’s Europe ma’am’, and then added ‘the brand is Spanish, you know that’.
Global sourcing—the case of Zara . 35
agent firms in Turkey that mediate between the buyer and its hundreds of Turkish
contractors and sub-contractors. The manufacturer reports that they visit Zara in Spain
every 3–4 weeks presenting collections of 20–30 items each time and, upon receiving
orders, manufacture for Zara with the understanding that second-quality items will also
be bought by Zara to be sold at Zara’s Lefties store.
The fact that Zara’s supply chains now extend to Turkey and similar countries has
received almost no attention in the literature, partly because of the manner in which
Inditex, Zara’s parent company, presents its information. The group’s web-page is
vague about what is meant by ‘Europe and its neighboring countries’, which
presumably includes Morocco, Turkey and the Eastern and Central European
countries. The company’s desire to appear committed to Europe’s manufacturing
7. Conclusion
This investigation of Zara, a major international clothing retailer and pioneer of ‘fast
fashion’ principles, has resulted in somewhat contradictory findings. On the one hand,
Zara, as part of a group called Industria de Diseno Textil (Inditex), which has 17
manufacturing subsidiaries in La Caruña and Barcelona, indeed still looks relatively
unique when compared with many other fast fashion retailers, which do not own
manufacturing facilities and instead network with suppliers—mostly located in partially
industrialized countries. On the other hand, the supply lines of Zara’s production chain
now extend into many such countries—from Morocco to Vietnam, a development
which provides strong evidence for the effects on the retailer of what Berger (2005) calls
the ‘cross-fertilization of business practices.’ As a result, Zara is now less of an
‘exception to globalization’—a reputation that the retailer gained as a result of its
business model, which some believed had the potential to ‘shape the future geography
of jobs’.
Today even the complicated and highly tailored fast fashion items of Zara are
sourced from firms in close-by Morocco, Bulgaria and Turkey, and the ‘relatively
faster’ items from firms in far away places such as China, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan,
Vietnam and Indonesia. What still differentiates Zara from other fast fashion retailers is
its relatively small dependency on China. But even this might be changing thanks to
Inditex’s recently established purchasing subsidiaries, Inditex Asia in Hong Kong and
Zara Asia in China.
21 The idea also lingers in popular and less scholarly outlets. For example, the popular Internet site
Wikipedia introduces Inditex as ‘the group [which] designs and manufactures almost everything by itself ’
(see http://wikicompany.org/wiki/Inditex).
36 . Tokatli
In this article, I have called special attention to the fact that firms in countries such as
India, Morocco and Turkey are now perfectly capable of manufacturing high-quality
and tailored clothes with the flexibility required by Zara; and argued that Zara is
sourcing from these countries partly because of the increasing competencies in these
countries. How plausible is this argument? Those who consider the change in Zara’s
strategy to be a standard exercise in the ‘new international division of labor,’ following
Fröbel et al.’s (1980) conceptualization, will not necessarily include this increasing
competence as a factor in their analysis, along with falling unit labor costs and
decreasing tariffs, transportation and transaction costs. On the other hand, others such
as Scott (2006, 1520) who find Fröbel’s conceptualization too rigid and describe ‘global
geographic space as something very much more than just a division between two
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Robert Beauregard, Susan Christopherson, Neil Wrigley and Henry Yeung who
read an earlier version of this article and made many helpful comments. I am also grateful to
Ömür Kızılgün, who kept Zara in mind when she was interviewing a number of Turkish
suppliers, during 2004–2006, for a larger project partially financed by the Scientific and Technical
_
Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK).
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