Zara Pre-Owned: Circular Business Model & Customer Insights Strategy
Innovation and go-to-market strategy for a circular-economy platform, combining consumer research, live shopping, and simulated activation metrics.
Type
Academic group project
Area
Innovation · Sustainability · Consumer Insights
Tools
Google Forms · Social listening · Lean Canvas · Retail benchmarking
Techniques
Social listening · Survey · Focus group · Lean Canvas · Live shopping · Go-to-market
Output
Circular strategy + customer insights
Value
Group project where we analysed a circular retail platform through a 53-response Gen Z survey, focus group, social listening, and Lean Canvas to extract insights on adoption, barriers, and digital activation.
Exploratory survey responses
Did not know live shopping
Flagged time required as a barrier
Age of the main visual buyer persona
Visual insight assets: empathy map, persona, journey, and Lean Canvas
Simulated first-month visits
ProjectedSimulated conversion rate
ProjectedSimulated first-month sales
Projected01 / Fast scan
Case in 60 seconds
A quick scan of the case: what was happening, what needed to be solved, what I did, and what value is demonstrated.
Situation
SThe second-hand and circularity market is growing, but adoption does not depend only on sustainability: trust, perceived quality, convenience, price, digital experience, and usage friction also matter.
Task
TGroup project where we analysed a circular retail platform through a 53-response Gen Z survey, focus group, social listening, and Lean Canvas to extract insights on adoption, barriers, and digital activation.
Action
A- 01Analyse market and sustainability context in fashion.
- 02Define adoption hypotheses and barriers for Zara Pre-Owned.
- 03Design survey, focus group, and social-listening reading.
- 04Synthesize insights into value proposition and Lean Canvas.
Result
R- External context showed opportunity: 43% of Spaniards consider buying second-hand products and almost 60% have bought second-hand clothing.
- In the survey, 60.4% were aged 23–26 and 77.4% were women; the sample was useful for exploring Gen Z, not representative of the total market.
- Live shopping had low familiarity: 84.9% did not know it and only 13.2% had participated.
- Communication should reduce friction and make quality tangible, not focus only on sustainability.
- Promotions, advice, and trust mechanisms are more actionable levers than generic circularity messages.
- 53 · Exploratory survey responses
02 / Context
Problem
This section explains the business or analytical challenge before going into technical detail.
02.1
Executive summary
Applied retail innovation case where the central question was how to turn sustainability and second-hand consumption into a useful, measurable proposition compatible with a mainstream brand. The work combined primary research, external insights, and activation simulation.
02.2
My role
Academic group project. My contribution focused on consumer analysis, metric interpretation, value proposition, go-to-market structure, and translating findings into activation decisions.
03 / Method
Approach
Methods, tools, and workflow. This shows how I structured the analysis.
03.1
Data & methods
- Online survey with 53 Gen Z responses, with a 10-person pretest.
- Focus group to explore purchase habits, sustainability, second-hand fashion, live shopping, and user experience.
- Social listening and external YouGov insights on live shopping in Spain and Europe.
- Lean Canvas, buyer persona, value proposition, and activation-dashboard simulation.
- Analysed visual assets: empathy map, buyer persona, customer journey, and Lean Canvas.
03.2
Process
- 01Analyse market and sustainability context in fashion.
- 02Define adoption hypotheses and barriers for Zara Pre-Owned.
- 03Design survey, focus group, and social-listening reading.
- 04Synthesize insights into value proposition and Lean Canvas.
- 05Simulate launch KPIs for visits, conversion, engagement, sales, and retention.
04 / Decision
Evidence and impact
Outputs, findings, and implications translated into decisions or professional value.
04.1
Key findings
- External context showed opportunity: 43% of Spaniards consider buying second-hand products and almost 60% have bought second-hand clothing.
- In the survey, 60.4% were aged 23–26 and 77.4% were women; the sample was useful for exploring Gen Z, not representative of the total market.
- Live shopping had low familiarity: 84.9% did not know it and only 13.2% had participated.
- The main barrier was not only quality: time required appeared as a barrier for 61.5%, and indifference for 57.7%.
- The visual buyer persona prioritised a 27-year-old woman in Madrid, low-middle purchasing power, and sensitivity to price, quality, repair, and sustainability.
- The empathy map concentrated barriers around trust, item condition/hygiene, shipping/returns information, price compared with other platforms, and repair uncertainty.
- The customer journey showed specific friction points: unintuitive web experience, uncertainty around product condition, shipment tracking, and the need for reviews/buyer photos.
- The Lean Canvas positioned the competitive advantage in integrating resale, donation, and repair within Zara's official app/web.
- The dashboard simulation proposed 50,000 first-month visits, 15% monthly growth, 2.5% conversion, and €15,000 initial sales.
04.2
Business implications
- Communication should reduce friction and make quality tangible, not focus only on sustainability.
- Promotions, advice, and trust mechanisms are more actionable levers than generic circularity messages.
- The proposition should compete with Vinted/Wallapop through brand trust, guarantee, repair, and integrated experience, not only price.
- The case is useful for innovation strategy, customer insights, digital retail, and go-to-market.
05 / Close
Professional close
Limitations, next steps, and available assets. This keeps the case honest and actionable.
05.1
Limitations
- Academic group project.
- Exploratory 53-response survey, not representative.
- Simulated dashboard KPIs, not actual Zara results.
05.2
What I would do next
- Validate the proposition with a larger segmented sample.
- Test trust, price, and convenience messages through A/B testing.
- Model resale, repair, and donation economics separately.
05.3
Assets
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