CEO: "Late digital transformation Inditex was blessing"

Inditex‘ CEO Pablo Isla has stated that the choice to enter e-commerce only quite late was a good one, because this way the company avoided teething problems and was able to immediately make a good start online.

Timing is crucial

Inditex did not have a web shop at all until 2010: only in that year, the group that owns brands like Bershka, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius and Zara started to deploy its online sales channels, a target that is still in full development. Next year, the Spanish group wants to achieve its ultimate goal: having its eight labels available from literally anywhere in the world.

Isla said this late entry on the online market had allowed Inditex to develop a strong online business model from the start, RetailGazette reports. He states that a start with e-commerce a few years earlier would have meant the current system of combining sourcing and distribution decisions by algorithms with the input by store managers, would not have been possible. It is, still according to Isla, exactly this combination that gives Inditex’ online activities a human touch.

Last year Inditex achieved an increase in both turnover and profit.