Zara Home: Same Customer, Different Approach

Home Textiles Today Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 2/13/2012 2:00:00 AM

FRANKFURT, GERMANY - If H&M has taken a radical approach to merchandising its new home collection, fellow fast retailer Zara is going a more conventional route; at least that appears to be the strategy from visiting a store here down the street from H&M.
     The Zara Home unit, one of many in several European countries for the Spanish-based retailer that has also targeted the United States as a major expansion market, is a free-standing unit, unlike H&M Home.
     Spreading over two floors, each about 1,000 square feet, the store uses a more traditional merchandising approach toward home with display beds and inventory in fixtures on the selling floor. Designs steer heavily toward neutrals in an assortment that would not be out of place in a Pottery Barn or West Elm store. Soft home dominates both floors, but there is a greater use of decorative accessories like candles and tabletop products than one finds at H&M.

The store’s inventory is housed in fixtures on the selling floor, unlike H&M where shoppers pick up their purchases at a central checkout counter.

The two-story Zara Home store in Frankfurt takes a more conventional approach to the category.

     Prices are similar with decorative pillow covers starting in the $5 range and towels generally in the $15 to $30 range.
     There are no Zara Home stores in the United States and the company has not announced plans to open any in the American market. It currently operates 47 apparel stores in the United States.