[ad_1]
Marble on the floor, potted olive trees, a few giant screens, dozens of mirrors. And fitting rooms closed with twine-colored linen curtains. The Zara store, which opens its doors on Friday, April 21, at 74, avenue des Champs-Elysées in Paris, a few meters from Weston and Louis Vuitton, has everything of a palace lobby.
His “2,700 m² located on the most beautiful avenue in the world, surrounded by all the luxury houses” deserved a nice envelope of works for “a differentiating architectural concept”, explain Diodio Wade, commercial director of the brand in France, without however revealing the amount invested.
Difficult to deny it: this store has nothing to do with the 110 others operated by the Zara brand in France in shopping centers and in the city center. It symbolizes the turn taken since ” three years “by the Spanish group Inditex, parent company of Zara, said a spokesperson.
Tourist clientele
Against the current of its competitors, which are definitively closing stores competing with online sales, the Spanish group is opening more spacious ones and integrating a battery of services related to e-commerce. The game is worth the candle: the Internet represents a quarter of Inditex’s 32.5 billion euros in turnover in 2022. And the multinational hopes to derive 30% of its activity from it in the medium term.
The concept of the Champs-Elysées store – it replaces two other points of sale operated on the avenue for twenty years – germinated in Madrid, a year ago, on 7,700 m², and was duplicated in London, on 4,450 m², in November 2022. Nothing would have been possible without radio-identification, this technology embedded on the label of each Zara garment, agrees Rania Ziadi, director of operations for Zara in France.
Thanks to the application, Zara customers can now locate the rack of the item they spotted online and slipped into their basket before going to the store. He can also book a fitting room in advance and pay for his purchases at an automatic cash register, without having to scan each barcode and, soon, without having to remove the lock, which will be dematerialized.
This method is supposed to appeal to those who enjoy going to the store but still get impatient with crowded changing rooms or long queues at checkouts in Zara stores. Fans of online orders can also go to the Champs-Elysées to collect their parcels. But the bulk of this outlet’s revenue will not come from online sales to local consumers, since “tourists should represent 50% of its clientele”, according to Mme Wade.
You have 28.66% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
[ad_2]