The FINANCIAL — Zara – the bestselling brand in Georgia, has now opened a second modern store in the centre of Tbilisi, on Rustaveli Avenue.
According to Dr. Yassine Sibari, Executive General Director of Zara and Inditex Group, Saudi Arabia, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the new Zara store is of the latest design concepts and one of the most beautiful Zara stores worldwide.
According to Dr. Sibari, the brand’s results in the country have exceeded the expectations of Zara Georgia. It is therefore planned for another Zara store to be opened, this time in Batumi in future.
The Zara on Rustaveli was opened with a fashion show presented by foreign models. The opening was attended by Georgian celebrities, representatives of business and the media.
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Inditex had 6,009 stores at the end of 2012, 482 more than a year earlier. New stores were opened in 64 markets, including initial launches in five countries: Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ecuador, Georgia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
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“On 10 May we opened our second Zara store in Georgia, on Rustaveli Ave. Our VIP visitors were invited to attend the opening ceremony of the new store. From 11 May everyone will be able visit the store to shop. We decided to open the second store in Tbilisi due to the huge success of the first store, in Tbilisi Mall. We wanted Tbilisi residents to be able to reach us more easily and comfortably which is why we brought our store to the centre of the city,” Dr. Sibari said.
“We will still keep the Tbilisi Mall Zara for those who enjoy the whole mall shopping experience. Our second store is in a great location though, closer to everything and closer to where people live in general,” Dr. Sibari said.
“Our second store is very beautiful; it’s the latest concept for Zara and the number one store in the Caucasus region because of the street’s location and beautiful building it’s in. It’s the newest Zara worldwide due to its facade, interior and its overall special design. It’s very easy to shop inside and at the same time, it’s aesthetically very nice,” Dr. Sibari said.
According to Dr. Sibari, despite the location, the Rustaveli Zara will not be a competitor of the Tbilisi Mall store.
“The people who enjoy going to the Mall will still visit it, there they can browse and go from one store to another. People at the Mall want to spend up to the whole day there, it’s altogether quite a different shopping experience. People who want to go to the brand’s high street location have decided that they just want a one-stop-shop, perhaps because they have less time in general. People in the Mall have much more time to spend shopping. We don’t think that this opening means that people will stop visiting the Mall, not by any means,” Dr. Sibari said.
“Actually whenever Zara opens a store, in any country in the world, the rest of the brands soon follow. Zara is the number one fashion retail brand in the world and it has no competition really. The rest of the brands enter the country because they trust in Zara and know that if Zara has opened on a market, then the market must have good potential. This is the reason why once Zara opened here the rest of the brands automatically followed suit. In general, Al Hokair Group, who is franchising Zara in Georgia, has a wide number of fashion retail brands, and since Al Hokair Group arrived with Zara the other most famous international brands soon followed, some of which are also its partners,” Dr. Sibari said.
Al Hokair Group is an official representative of Inditex in Georgia, which operates over 5,000 stores worldwide and is responsible for bringing six brands to Georgia: Zara, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Pull & Bear.
“Actually we have great sales results in all sections but most of all Zara Women, followed by Zara Kids and then Zara Men. In Zara Women we are mostly selling fashionable items. People like anything innovative and new. The Zara brand is very popular in Georgia, our fashion goes down well with Georgian women and that’s why we are successful here. As I always said, Georgian women are very trendy and the fashion awareness of Georgian women in general is very high,” Dr. Sibari said.
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“Not just in Georgia but throughout the world generally, wherever we go, men are not like women when it comes to shopping. Men are more traditional about clothes. They tend to remain cautious around the newest fashion trends. In every country that Zara enters, people start changing though. We change the culture of menswear in each of the countries we enter,” Dr. Sibari said.
According to Dr. Sibari, what makes Zara exceptional is that the brand has extremely fast fashion.
“We have two new collections every week which is impossible for any other brand in the world. We offer the latest fashion items every week for the best prices. We offer the same fashion as the highest brands and the very items which they offer can be found in our stores, sometimes earlier and at about 5% less of the price,” Dr. Sibari said.
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The online store network continues to expand, reaching 23 markets, with noteworthy launches including Zara online stores in China in 2012 and Canada in 2013.
Zara is set to launch its online store in the Russian Federation during the Autumn/Winter 2013 season.
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