e-commerce isn’t a piece of cake, but the wait and see approach is starting to become silly at this point – especially for a retailer of Zara’s size. Obviously they’ve done remarkably well at getting the formula down offline. Their website is probably more useful than a lot of other non-etail brands: you can share items on Facebook, send product links to friends – which is a good first step. But as you say, they have an enormous offline presence, and at that size to not have a complimentary enormous online presence is ignoring a lot of shoppers. Shoppers who may not have the time or patience to go from store to store if an item they like isn’t available in a certain size or color, or people who would shop, but aren’t close enough to physical stores to keep visiting or checking back each time they see something that they like.

I suppose more than anything, it’s the lack of e-commerce in the US, which was one of Zara’s later offline markets to enter, but perhaps the most mature in terms of online retailing, that puzzles me. Obviously you have to start somewhere – and to do it right takes time, but if you’re going to wait I think the wait should be for something that’s worth it.

Serge Derhy
Ceo Rene Derhy Paris