Zara
“Can Zara embed circular economy infrastructure — resale, repair, donation — into its retail experience while keeping payments and customer experience fully Zara-branded?”
Founded1975
HQA Coruña, Galicia, Spain
IndustryE-commerce / Retail
The story
Zara is a vertically integrated fast-fashion retailer operating globally under the Inditex conglomerate. In 2023, Zara expanded into circular fashion with its Pre-Owned resale marketplace, leveraging Stripe Connect as the embedded payments layer to move funds between buyers and sellers — representing the company's first publicly disclosed embedded finance partnership. The Pre-Owned platform embeds marketplace payment orchestration under the Zara brand while offloading payments compliance to Stripe.
Last 12 months
Product timeline
1975
Zara founded as a fashion retail brand in A Coruña, Spain, as part of Inditex group.· pivot
2023
Launched Zara Pre-Owned, a resale marketplace for second-hand Zara products, initially available in the UK with Stripe Connect powering payments.· banking
The stack
Payments / PSP
Accounting gap: none