The latest trends in fashion, technology and sustainability applied at the point of sale come together in the brand new Zara store, which opened its doors on Friday in the heart of Madrid. We had the opportunity to visit the store, located on the ground floor of the emblematic Edificio España in the Spanish capital, even before its official opening. The building across from the renovated Plaza de España was described as the largest Zara in the world even before it opened.
With a surface area of more than 7,700 square meters, of which 3,815 square meters are retail, the new Zara store in Plaza de España has managed to realize its most innovative store concept, which includes new services and new ways of presenting the collections, unlike any other seen in more than 2,000 Zara stores around the world. These include a series of novelties presented by the chain in larger flagship stores in iconic locations, with a renewed image and the latest omnichannel technologies. Thus, on this occasion, they managed to create a store that looks more like a department store than a typical fast-fashion chain store.
More than just a flagship store
Let’s start our visit to this Zara in Plaza de España – the flagship store has four floors in total, with the ground floor and first floor dedicated to the women’s collections and the most important new shopping offers, the collection and return of online orders, the third floor for men’s fashion and the basement for children’s collections from Zara.
At the entrance to the store, as well as at various strategic points, there is a QR code that you can scan with your phone to get a detailed floor plan of the store. From here you can walk through a floor at street level, designed in such a way that the women’s fashion collections themselves give the space its own character with each new season. An idea of the Zara architectural team, responsible for the development of the entire store project, by softening the space’s barriers, fusing the interior and exterior of the facility and bringing it into direct dialogue with the Plaza de España through large windows that bathing the interior in plenty of natural light, and the placement of various ornamental trees.
Among the other peculiarities offered by this floor, in addition to a large checkout area, there is a department dedicated to denim fashion, some eye-catching screens intended to dynamize the shopping process, a “Click&Collect” area for collecting online orders or an automated point for online returns – the first to have the chain go live in one of its stores worldwide.
Shopping with reservation
From this ground floor, either by elevators or escalators, you can reach the first floor, also dedicated to women’s fashion, but in this case reserved specifically for the chain’s novelties. The main technological services that Zara offers in this new store in Plaza de España are also concentrated on this floor, with a large changing area where cabins can be reserved, both physically and through the “Click&Try” service of the Zara shopping app. In a large area with self-service checkouts, customers can unpack items themselves, pay for them and take them with them, they can pay by card or via the Zara app with the “Pay&Go” service.
The entire store is geared towards autonomous shopping. On the first floor there is a pick-up point for online purchases, which has a robot-controlled silo with a capacity for up to 1,500 orders. An automated option that has been launched alongside a box recycling area where customers can drop off the boxes and packaging material that their online purchases come with.
Boutique-like rooms and lingerie
Among all the technological innovations and new services made available to customers, one of the most striking aspects is the establishment of the new “boutique” spaces that the chain has started to develop.
In each of the three different areas for women, men and children, an independent space has been designed as a “showroom” where the chain exhibits its shoe and accessory designs of different sizes, giving the Zara on the Plaza de España the feeling of shopping in a boutique.
With the same idea in mind and supported by a specialized staff dedicated exclusively to each of these “boutique” spaces, on the first floor dedicated to women, in addition to this area specialized in shoes and accessories, we also find a “boutique” space for the Zara Beauty line. Another novelty of the store is another “boutique” space, in this case dedicated to the Zara Lingerie line, previously only available on Zara’s website.
efforts towards sustainability
Connected to the internal “Inergy” platform, from which Inditex centrally monitors the efficient consumption of air conditioning and energy systems in its stores, great importance was also attached to the development and commissioning of this new “megastore” in Plaza de España by Zara correct use and optimization of natural resources.
While the store’s interior showcases increasingly sustainable collections and works towards the goal of having at least 50 percent of the garments sold be sold under the Inditex Join Life label by 2022, more eco-friendly materials have been used in the construction of the premises.
What stands out here is the use of cellulose cladding for the ceilings and interior walls, giving the entire interior a certain unique character. An environment in which a number of other eco-efficient measures have also been implemented, such as temperature control systems, air curtains at the store entrances, speed-controlled escalators, LED lighting, motion sensors, automatic lighting programs and low-flow faucets in the bathrooms, allowing the store to ” Breeam” seal, the European certificate for sustainable building.
This translated and abridged post first appeared on Fashionunited.es.