Zara launches online store in China

Spanish clothes retailer Zara launched an online store in the Chinese mainland on Wednesday, a milestone for the company's e-commerce business expansion.

The website, will offer online shoppers the same full range of merchandise for women, men and kids as the one found in physical stores.

Items sold online are priced the same as those found in high street Zara stores. Besides e-commerce, Zara is also active in social networks such as micro-blogging website Weibo and video website Youku.

The fashion giant is known for its flexibility and swift response to emerging trends. New Zara items hit shops twice a week, while most fashion brands take months.

The La Coruna-based company entered the Chinese market in 2006 with its first store in Shanghai. Today, Zara operates more than 105 stores in more than 40 Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Chongqing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Xian and Changsha.

Over the past years, China has become a crucial market for the Inditex Group, which owns Zara, hosting more than 300 Inditex stores branded under eight of the company's retail formats, and is one of the international markets in which the group has the most extensive retail footprint.

The Inditex Group is one of the world's largest fashion retailers with more than 5,600 stores in 85 markets across the five continents. In addition to Zara, Inditex owns seven other brands: Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterqüe.