Inditex, owner of Zara stores, is planning ambitious expansion in the US

Inditex landed in the United States with its first Zara store in New York in 1989, when it had just begun its international expansion. Over time, the United States has established itself as the Spanish fashion retail giant’s second largest market, only behind Spain itself. The company is now reinforcing its commitment to the U.S. with new openings, store renovations and the launch of innovative streaming sales, as explained on Thursday by the company’s CEO, Óscar García Maceiras, in a speech at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in Washington.

One of the milestones is the return of the group’s Massimo Dutti brand to the country, years after withdrawing after a failed first venture. Massimo Dutti will open its first store in mid-October, in Aventura Mall, in the Miami area. The brand first tested the U.S. market 12 years ago with the opening of a physical store on Fifth Avenue in New York, which was the chain’s largest at the time, but ended up backing out.

Right now, Inditex only has a physical presence in the United States with its 100 Zara stores. In these, the company is immersed in an investment process with new openings, renovations, relocations and expansions.

“We will continue to focus on improving our presence in the United States, where we have 100 stores, all of them Zara. Besides this new Massimo Dutti store that will open in mid-October, in the coming months we will be executing very important, very exciting projects in order to enhance our customers’ experience here,” Maceiras said in Georgetown.

The group also plans to launch its second-hand clothing platform, Zara Pre Owned, at the end of October. Its U.S. plans include a third Zara store in the Dallas area, in Frisco, by the end of the year, and the relocation and expansion of the Zara stores in Tampa (Florida) and in Topanga (California).

Before the end of the month, the group is planning the U.S. launch of its streaming sales platform, which it has already successfully tested in China. “We are very excited about the possibility of expanding that kind of interaction. Our expectation is that it will have a great impact for our customers,” said Maceiras. Streaming sales are also being launched in Canada, the U.K., Spain, France, Italy and Germany.

As for next year, “we will open a new store in Cambridge, in the Boston area. We will revamp our downtown Boston store on New Street. We will expand our 34th Street and Hudson Yards stores in Manhattan. We will also relocate our Los Angeles store from Farmers Market to The Grove,” the Inditex chief executive explained. “We now have a presence in 25 different states, and in the next few quarters, we will reach our 26th with a new store in Charlotte, North Carolina.”

Inditex owns the brands Zara, Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho and Zara Home. The retail giant grew out of a dressmaker shop founded in 1963 by Amancio Ortega, an entrepreneur from the western Spanish region of Galicia, where Inditex headquarters are still located.

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