ZARA founder amancio ortega

ZARA is a fast fashion brand with a worldwide reputation, but its founder, amancio ortega, is little known. Born in a poor area of Spain, this poor boy, with his own efforts, has succeeded step by step and gone global.

I. Apprenticeship

Amancio ortega is a billionaire rising from the bottom. He was born in a poverty-stricken area in Spain, where his parents' income is meager, his family is financially strapped, and the whole family has difficulty in feeding.

At the age of eight, Ortega's family moved to La Coruna, a remote fishing port town. This is the traditional textile and garment industry center in Spain and the starting point of Ortega's struggle.

On one occasion, Ortega's mother wanted to buy him some candy, but the shop owner said that she could no longer get credit. Ortega felt very humiliated.

In order to change his fate, Ortega, 13, decided to drop out of school and become an apprentice in a clothing store. He started as a handyman, delivered clothes to guests every day, and then became a tailor's assistant, and gradually came into contact with the core areas of fashion design.

Ortega found that there was a huge profit margin in the whole process from design to production to retail, and he hoped that he could make money from it. "I must make something of myself!"

As a result, he became more and more diligent and inquisitive, and gradually mastered a complete set of business processes in the garment industry, laying a solid foundation for future entrepreneurship.

Second, the entrepreneurial journey

A few years later, Ortega entered La Maja high-end clothing store to work. With his outstanding performance, he was quickly promoted from ordinary shop assistant to department manager.

At that time, Ortega was responsible for selling an exquisite ladies' cotton-padded nightgown. He found that this kind of robe is very popular among female consumers, but few people care about it because of its high price. He seized the opportunity and decided to produce his own nightgown with good quality and low price.

In 1963, Ortega founded ConfeccionesGoa Garment Factory. After selecting fabrics, cutting and sewing, Ortega successfully produced similar nightgown styles and sent them to local shops for sale.

Because it meets the market demand and is affordable, Ortega's robe sales are booming, and the size of ConfeccionesGoa garment factory is growing rapidly, with more than 500 employees in ten years.

However, the good times didn't last long. In the 1970s, when the oil crisis broke out, a German company temporarily cancelled a large number of orders, and Ortega was on the verge of bankruptcy. He decided to give it a go and sell it himself. ZARA came into being.

With fashionable design and price close to the people, ZARA has risen rapidly and spread all over the world. Behind this is Ortega's unique business model.

Third, the business model

Since opening the first ZARA store in La Coruna, Ortega has always adhered to the "fast fashion" business model.

First, build a large team of designers to keep up with the trend.

Ortega employs more than 260 designers, who travel through various fashion shows all the year round to capture the latest fashion information and feed it back to the company headquarters. Then, the designer team quickly revised the design and launched new products.

Secondly, the product has rich styles and fast iteration speed.

ZARA's clothes are fashionable and rich in styles, and the iteration speed is very fast. It takes only four or five weeks from design to production to putting the finished products on shelves, while it takes only two weeks to improve the products that have been put on shelves.

Finally, quickly copy offline stores and make ZARA spread all over the world.

In terms of site selection, Ortega will open ZARA stores in the most prosperous and most popular places in each city. From new york to Paris, and then to China, ZARA stepped onto the international stage step by step and became a global fast fashion giant.

The success of ZARA mode has enabled Ortega to leap from poor boy to the richest man in Europe, and also created a fashion myth.