Inditex closes many stores, invests billions in ecommerce

Inditex, which owns eight brands including Zara and Pull&Bear, will close up to 1,200 stores. Instead, the fashion giant has unveiled a digital platform while it wants to further boost its digital transformation.

The Spanish retail group expects online sales to account for over 25 percent of total sales by 2020. For comparison, ecommerce accounted for 14 percent last year.

Opening larger stores, closing smaller ones

The plan for Inditex is to continue opening larger stores while closing the smaller ones. Ultimately, the fashion retailers wants to have about 6,800 stores, down from 7,412. Among the 1,000 to 1,200 smaller-sized stores it wants to close, most of them belong to brands other than Zara.

The closes stored mostly belong to brands other than Zara.

Headcount will remain stable

The group said there won’t be a (significant) different in personnel numbers, because it will offer all associated from closed stores positions that cover the needs generated by online integration. For example, some might be offered to dispatch online customer items from store.

A 2.7 billion euros investment

CEO Pablo Isla announced that the company will invest 1 billion euros in reinforcing its online business, while a further 1.7 billion euros will be used to upgrade the integrated store platform. “The overriding goal between now and 2022 is to speed up full implementation of our integrated store concept, driven by the notion of being able to offer our customers uninterrupted service no matter where they find themselves, on any device and at any time of the day”, Isla commented.

We want to offer our customers uninterrupted service wherever or whenever they visit us.