While management stressed that Zara used the same business system in all the countries in which it operated, there was some variation in retailing operations at the local level. The first store opened in each market-often a flagship store in a major city-played a particularly critical role in refining the marketing mix by affording detailed insights into local demand. The marketing mix emerged there was applied to other stores in the country as well.
Pricing was, as described earlier, market-based. However, if a decision was taken to enter a particular market, customers effectively bore the extra costs of supplying it from Spain. Prices on average, 40% higher in Northern European countries than in Spain, 10 higher in other European countries, 70% higher in the Americas, and 100% higher in japan. (Exhibit 15 provides more information, for a representative product.) Zara had historically marked local currency prices for all the countries in which it operated on each garment's price tag, making the latter an "atlas" as its footprint expanded. (See Exhibit 16 for an old, multi-country price tag) As key Western European markets switched to the euro at the beginning of 2002, Zara simplified its price tags to list only the prices in the local markets in which a particular garment might be sold, even though this complicated logistics.