Most of Zara's garments, both internally made and externally contracted, flow through its massive distribution center in La Coruna- about the size of 90 football fields or smaller satellite centers in Brazil and Mexico. A state-of-the-art tracking system moves hanging garments to appropriate bar-coded areas. As goods travel along 125 miles of underground rails that link production sites, they are sorted in carousels capable of handling 45,000 folded garments per hour once garments are completed, Zara ships about two-and-a-half million items per week to stores worldwide. Third-party delivery services manage the transfer of preprogrammed lots to stores; they deliver customized orders within 24 hours for stores in Europe, the Middle East, and much of the US, and 48 hours for Asia and Latin America. Such fancy foot- work has dropped Zara's inventory to 7 percent of annual revenues, compared with the mid-to-high teens for its rivals