Zara online stores break growth records

As an effect of store closures in the course of the COVID-19 retail lockdowns in the first phase of the fight against the pandemic, Inditex reported heavy sales losses by mid-2020. The mother company of the Spanish fast-fashion brand Zara reacted with a major shift in its business strategy and announced to close around 1,200 brick-and-mortar stores within the next few years. The decision was likely not only based on the poor performance of the stationary retail business in the pandemic year 2020, but also on the overwhelming success that Inditex’ online stores had at the same time, to which the biggest brand of the group Zara contributed a major part. ecommerceDB.com has recently updated their sales figures and forecasts for zara.com – Zara’s main fashion online store – and zarahome.com – the brand’s home textiles and houseware online store, which reflect the more than positive eCommerce development of Zara:

Zara’s main fashion URL zara.com had constantly grown its net sales by substantial double-digit year-on-year rates in the past. 2017 had been a record growth year, with a plus of 43% year-on-year, but only until the pandemic hit. In 2020, zara.com topped this rate and increased their online net sales by an amazing 64% compared to 2019. This resulted in total eCommerce net sales of €5.9 billion. Zara’s home decoration online store zarahome.com is far from this net sales amount. zarahome.com generated total net sales of €322 million in 2020. In terms of growth, however, the Zara store for home textiles and houseware outperformed the fashion store by far. With a year-on-year growth of a whopping 126%, zarahome.com grew twice as fast as zara.com. The upward trend is more than likely to continue for both Zara online stores. zara.com and zarahome.com are projected to stay on a double-digit growth path through the years 2021 and 2022. zarahome.com is forecast to more double their net sales again within the next two years. As nobody can currently estimate how long the coronavirus pandemic will still be around and as consumer habits have likely changed sustainably in favor of eCommerce, it is a reasonable move of Zara mother Inditex to expand their online business further.

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April 2021