In 2010, amidst the growth of ecommerce and the emergence of new, purely online, fashion players, Zara launched its first online store, Zara.com. Since then, Zara's online business had grown at a fast pace. By 2018, 12% of Inditex Group's total sales came from the online channel. Since the inception of the first online store, Inditex leadership wanted its online and offline businesses to be integrated. However, the increase of online orders challenged some of its operations. Inditex was committed to the vision of becoming fully-integrated, fully-digital, and fully-sustainable by 2020. How could stores continue to be relevant in a world with increasing presence of online touchpoints?

Questions:

1. Conduct a SWOT analysis with respect to ZARA's online business. Create a table.
2. Based on the threats/opportunities in the SWOT, develop 2-3 alternatives, evaluate their pros/cons, then recommend a solution that will help Zara achieve its stated objectives. You can organize the alternatives, pros and cons in a table.

Zara: An Integrated Store and Online Model (A) This fty-integrated approach is much more than stock integration. \""5 everything. \""5 our real estate strategy. it's the may we Show the product in the stores. So it has a Lot to do with at! the different aspects of the mmgonent of the company. The! is why it is so strategic. Pablo Isle, Chairman and CEO of the lnditex Group In the fall of 2013, a group of senior managers of the fashion group Inditex were heading to a meeting with Group Chairman and CEO Pablo lsla to discuss how to advance Zara's \"integrated model" in light of the growth of online orders. lsla, who had been Group Chairman and CEO since 2W5, had topped the Harvard Business Review ranking of best performing CEOs in 2017 and 2018, and had ambitious plans for the future.' Zara was the Group's oldest and largest brand, representing around 69% of sales, or 18 billion in 2013 (see Exhibit 1). At the core of Zara's success was an innovative business model based on a very responsive supply chain and quick merchandise turnaround. Zara designed, produced and delivered new items to stores in less than three weeks, allowing it to constantly update its collections and adapt to changing customer tastes. Stores worldwide received shipments from Spain twice a week of both new and replenishment products. The stores maintained low inventories: customers visited thern frequently.r to see the new arrivals. Zara management viewed its more than 2,200 stores as the brands' main marketing tool and used the stores to capture quantitative and qualitative feedback on new looks and trends. In 2010, amidst the growth of eoornmerce and the emergence of new, purely online, fashion players, Zara launched its first online store. Zaracom. Since then, Zara's online business had grown at a fast pace. The rest of the brands of the lnditex Group followed a similar path. By 2018, 12% of inditex Group's total sales came from the online channel. For those countries where Inditex had online sales, online sales were 14% of the sales inthose countries. Since the inception of the first online store, lnditex leadership wanted its online and ofine businesses to be integrated. However, the increase of online orders challenged some of its operations. For example, online orders had higher return rates {see Exhibit 2 for industry-level figures}, which required more attention to "reverse logistics" activities such as receiving evaluating, and storing returned goods. "it:k-anld-collect'r orders, for which customers ordered online and picked up their ordered products at a store, represented about one third of online