Mobile payment is coming to stores belonging to fashion retailer Inditex Group in September, chairman and executive Pablo Isla announced recently during the company’s annual general meeting.
Inditex has eight brands and more than 7,000 stores throughout the world. These brands include Zara, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterqüe.
Initially, the company’s in-house developed application, InWallet, will facilitate mobile payment at any of the group’s brands in Spain. The service will also allow all receipts to be issued electronically. Isla said the new service has been designed to enhance the shopping experience and aims to significantly simplify the purchase and returns process.
Customers can activate the service directly from the online app and add the payment cards they want to use on the account in a safe and secure way. The app has been developed entirely in-house by Inditex as part of the group’s efforts to continually upgrade technology to improve the overall customer experience.
Isla also announced that the RFID technology rollout across all Zara stores is on track for completion by the end of this year and due to be rolled out in the rest of the group’s brands starting next year.
Meanwhile, the Inditex chief has launched an ambitious recycling program that would collect customers’ unwanted clothing when shopping online.
Under the plan, between 1,500 and 2,000 clothes collection containers will be installed in several Spanish cities in collaboration with Caritas. Simultaneously, Zara will continue installing containers in the bricks and mortar stores, and in September all Zara stores in Spain will have a container for recycling.
Caritas will sort the clothing to further the garment’s life through its distribution channels or allow for recycling for the development of new textile raw materials. The pilot test will initially trial in Madrid with the aim of gradually introducing the scheme all over Spain.
Inditex said it will donate €3.5 million ($3.9 million) over two years to this project, which will also encompass the modernization of Cáritas’s garment sorting and treatment plants.