Zara to close more than 1000 stores As part of a wider plan aimed at boosting the e-commerce

At the end of April, the H&M group announced the closure of seven stores in Italy, in a broader attempt to cut costs, not only because of the difficult situation the group has been suffering lately but also because of the losses suffered from the Coronavirus emergency. The Spanish group Inditex, which owns Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius and Massimo Dutti, has recently unveiled a similar plan, but on a larger scale, and dictated by different objectives. 

With almost 90% of stores closed in the lockdown weeks, the group suffered a 44% drop in sales in the period from February to April 2020, with a net loss in the first quarter of the year of €409 million euros. Much more positive are the numbers relating to e-commerce, which boasts a +50% of online sales in the quarter just ended, and, above all, +95% of online purchases in April. 

There is another practice that the Inditex group has carried out in recent months, namely the so-called integrating stock. The problem of unsold goods has always been one of the trickiest and most debated issues regarding fast fashion, both on a practical level and also when it comes to brand reputation and image. Because of huge volumes of goods and too fast cycles, not all the products that are produced and distributed can be sold, and for a long time, the solution was to burn all the unsold. The integrating stock partially solves the problem, making all the goods that have not been sold in the store available in the online store. 

In the first weeks of quarantine, Zara was one of the first brands to experiment with homemade shootings, a response to the social distancing measures, soon adopted by many other brands, from Jacquemus to Gucci, resulting in very similar campaigns. Zara's intuition demonstrates its great sensitivity and the intelligent use of the digital medium, fundamental components for the success of strategic e-commerce.

To date, the Inditex group can rely on over 5,700 stores open in 79 different markets, and in particular, in China, Korea and Japan, store sales are returning to the same level as in the same period of 2019.