Several years also, I read somewhere that Zara has world-class supply chain and its products can be shipped from Spain to any store worldwide within 3 days. It kind of “revolutionized” my view toward Zara (as well as its sister brands).
My working place is close to a big shopping mall; sometimes, I just took a little bit extra walking to shop around there after work. Since last week, I was eyeing a new dress in ZARA and Monday I decided to have a try. It’s nice on me; but there was no XS in stock. The sales lady told me to leave a contact and they would check for me. (I was surprised that they did not have an on-line system to show inventory. Maybe they were too busy.)
20 minutes later, she called and I was told that another store somewhere else has XS and I have 2 options: 1) to go there to buy by myself; 2) to wait for another week for the XS to be shipped to their store. I choose to wait. It’s just 5.7 kilometers driving and maybe 20-minute travel by subway between the 2 stores; which made a week’s waiting a little bit unacceptable.
“It does not make sense. But it should not be an incautious strategy and it should be logic choice.” Therefore, it turned out to be an augmentation with myself.
Logistics of New Launch VS Store-to-Store Stock Transfer for Size Stock out
- Market
Deployment of new product launch is targeting the whole market; size stock-out is only for few customers.
- Cost.
Since Zara stores have very shorter turnaround time; it’s cheaper to deploy products with “forecasted size segmentation” and “batch replenishment” than to arrange frequent store-to-store transfer; because anyway, deployment for new launch is must-have and stock replenishment twice weeks is confirmed event.
- Customer Service.
Size stock out is small probability event, especially for XS size. There is no essential need to cater to such scenario for a brand like Zara (high-street rather than Luxuries) and someone like me (a normal customer without very deep loyalty). I forgot to ask if I can request for shipping by courier and pay by myself. Well, again it does not make sense because if I really need it, I can just rush to another store.
Does it sound reasonable? Well, it’s just my wild guess.
BTW, Friday, Zara called me and I got the XS size. Maybe they include it in the regular replenishment.
Thinking Really Matters 