Monday, July 9, 2012

Zara- How One Online Retailer Collects & Uses Data

   The clothing store Zara’s online shopping site collects demographic data from users from the very first interaction on the site’s home page. When visiting Zara.com you are asked to identify your country and language from drop down menus.

Once you enter your demographic information, you are taken to that country’s site (for me it was Zara United States.) From here you can shop via departments such as woman, man, kids, etc. or you can login to your account.
   For new customers, Zara asks that you create an account. Here you are asked your email address, password, first and last name, address, zip code, city/town, state, phone number, and correspondence preferences. You are also asked to accept their privacy policy. Below are segments from Zara’s privacy policy pertaining to information that they collect from visitors and how that information is used.
According to the Zara privacy policy:
We collect three types of information from you: i) information that you provide to us; ii) information we collect or receive from others; and iii) information that is derived through automated tracking mechanisms and technology.

We collect information when you register online or update your account, log-in, place an order, communicate with our customer service representatives, opt-in to receive our e-mails, shop online, request a catalog, participate in a sweepstakes, contest, promotion or survey or join our social networking sites. We may also collect information from you in our stores or through our catalogs or other marketing material. This information may include, but is not limited to, your contact information (for example, your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping addresses and phone number) and your credit card information. If you create an online account, you also have the option of providing your product preferences and demographic information. If you use other functionalities found on our Site, or if you choose to send an e-mail from our site to a friend, we will also collect your friend's name and e-mail address …

We may collect information through automated tracking mechanisms and technology to make our Site more interesting and useful to you and for various purposes related to our business. For instance, when you come to our Site, we may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type. Such information may be used for system administration and to analyze the frequency with which visitors to our Site visit various parts of our sites; and we may combine such information with personally identifiable information.

We also use "cookies," Web beacons, and other tracking technologies…Cookies are used to track the pages of the websites you have visited and do not retain any personally identifiable information such as your name, address or any financial information. We may use cookies to, among other things, enable you to use certain Website features, remember the items in your shopping cart, store your preferences, recognize you when you return to our Website, speed up your searches, track your orders, and monitor and maintain information about your general Internet usage and use of our Website. Cookies help us to improve our Website and to deliver a better and more customized service. They allow us to customize our Website according to your individual interests. (Zara.com, 2011)

I was very impressed with this retailer’s privacy policy. I think that they do a great job of being very upfront about what data they are collecting and how that information will be used. Once users accept this privacy policy, their online account can also store more information such as favorite stores that can be conveniently shipped to, track orders, make returns easily and change account preferences.

   The information obtained by the company from users creating accounts is a marketers dream. Information can be used to track purchases, create future email correspondence, gauge the success of that email correspondence, determine the location of buyers and areas to be targeted and track shopping preferences. In my case, they also have my cell phone number to send text alerts.

    According to the privacy policy, the company not only uses the information that they obtain from you to track purchases but also to,
Maintain a record of your purchases made on our Website and combine this with information you have provided in our retail stores or over the phone in order to serve you better. We may combine information you provide with demographic information and information that is publicly available. We may also use information about your product preferences and interests in order to improve our site design and enhance your shopping experience (Zara.com, 2011).
  
Although it’s difficult to think of how this company could do any better in collecting data about its visitors I think that it could use some help in getting more visitors. For example, the company says that they have “the latest fashion for women, men and kids” (Zara.com, 2012) However, when you search Google for “women’s clothing” Zara does not come up and other retailers such as Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, New York & Company, Forever 21,Coldwater Creek and many others do. Also, the companies marketers could take advantage of ad space for search’s on “women’s clothing” similar to the companies Ann Taylor, Chico’s, White House Black Market and Zappos. Even when I specifically searched for “fashion for women” or “fashion for women, men and kids” Zara did not come up anywhere in my top results. They could definitely benefit from tracking some of their keywords and enhancing their search engine optimization.

   The company also maintains a Facebook page that has over 13 million followers and a Pinterest site. The Zara Facebook page advertises their Lookbook and sales as well as press coverage. I’m sure that they also collect data from this site, but if not they could gather information of demographics, shares and referrals as well. Zara could work on increasing engagement on their Facebook page by soliciting pictures of followers wearing Zara clothes or soliciting opinions on new fashions. They could also benefit from paid advertising on Facebook to draw more traffic to their site.

   All in all, I’d say that this company does a great job with collecting data and identifying how that data is used. Since the company is a worldwide clothing chain that is continuing to open more stores I’d say that they are benefitting from this data quite well.

References:
Zara.com (2011, September 5). Privacy Policy. Retrieved July 9, 2012 from www.zara.com

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