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Zara has developed an elevated, tech-enabled retail experience which on Thursday made its U.S. debut at The Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards.
On Wednesday, WWD took a private tour of the 22,000-square-foot Zara store, situated on the third floor of the Hudson Yards mall on Manhattan’s far west side. The Zara store is an expanded version of the two-level, 18,000-square-foot Zara unit that opened when Hudson Yards launched in 2019. It now spans a single floor with two main entrances, and showcases Zara’s latest women’s and men’s collections.
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Gone are the escalators and the jumble of merchandise racks. Instead, there’s a cleaner, more contemporary, and warmer ambience marked by porcelain flooring created to emulate the refined, industrial aesthetic of micro cement; overhead directed LED spotlighting, wood fixtures, area rugs, leather sofas and virtually no signage though the denim area has digital displays. The store is designed with an easy flow of boutiques, each housing different day and evening clothes and accessories, from Zara’s more sophisticated ready-to-wear and tailored looks, to the brand’s trendy and casual styles. While each boutique exudes a different personality, there’s a cohesiveness to the overall space.
There’s also innovative fixturing, including ceramic bases or modules replicating the look and texture of bricks in women’s and in the footwear and accessories section. The gray metallic fixturing in the denim area projects a youthful aura, and there are oversize mirrors, 8.8 feet by 5 feet, for head-to-toe viewing.
The emphasis on outfitting is appreciable, in particular with matching sets such as a fluid-fitting viscose blouse paired with a wide-legged trouser, priced $79 for each piece. There are also linen outfits, with blazers and wide-leg pants with elastic waistbands, at a similar price point. Knitwear is also highlighted. Yet the stock keeping unit count on the selling floor is restrained, so for example, in footwear, a style will be displayed in just one size, or in fashion, not every color of a style is displayed, adding a boutique feel to the selling floor — and that’s where the technology comes in.
With RFID, Zara has been ahead of the game. The retailer began implementing RFID in 2013 and by 2015 it was rolled out to the entire collection, enabling quick locating of items in a specific color or size that a customer saw on the Zara website and wants to see in the store. The RFID enables Zara associates to locate an item wherever it might be in the store, in a stockroom, in another store, or online. With the Zara app, a digital map of the store can be accessed on a cell phone, indicating where a requested item is located. The RFID readers are overhead. Zara has been “obsessed” about integrating RFID across its shopping channels, a spokesperson said.
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