There are over 2,100 Zara stores located across 88 countries. Zara usually selects the best located and most expensive real estate locations in the world to open its flagship stores. Zara has flagship stores on Fifth Avenue in New York,Oxford Street in London, Calle Serrano in Madrid, Via del Corso in Rome, Champs-Élysées in Paris, Corso Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg, GUM in Vladivostok, Shibuya and Ginza in Tokyo, Myeongdong in Seoul, and others.

Most of the products Zara sells are manufactured in proximity countries like Spain, Portugal, Turkey and Morocco. While some competitors outsource all production to Asia, Zara manufactures its most fashionable items—half of all its merchandise—at a dozen company-owned factories in Spain and Portugal and Turkey, particularly in Galicia and northern Portugal and Turkey. Clothes with a longer shelf life, such as basic T-shirts, are outsourced to low-cost suppliers, mainly in Asia.