Sell on Zalando

The beginning of Zalando

Zalando is inspired by the American Zappos and was founded in Germany. It all started in 2008, when David Schneider and Robert Gentz founded Zalando for the online sale of shoes. In the Netherlands we have known Zalando since 2010: the year in which this fashion giant became the online market leader in the sale of shoes.

This site has now grown into a gigantic, international marketplace with an annual profit of hundreds of millions of euros! Not just with shoes by the way, but also with all kinds of other fashion items. And yes: you can also benefit from this. In this article we tell you everything you need to know about selling on the Zalando marketplace.

Zalando has 49 million active customers

If you are going to sell on Zalando, you are assured of a large reach. The Zalando Partner Program gives you direct access to up to 23 European markets! An ideal opportunity to start selling across the Dutch border. Your products will soon end up in, for example, Germany, France, Spain or Austria.

In short: selling on Zalando quickly results in a lot of extra sales. After all, this marketplace is much better visited than your own webshop. Zalando only supplies high quality products. That's why customers trust your brand more and come back again and again. Zalando is a closed marketplace. In order to sell on Zalando, you must have permission.

Zalando marketplace: Zalando / Partner Fulfillment

But what about the logistics requirements if you want to sell via Zalando? We are happy to explain it to you. As an external partner of Zalando, you choose the 'Zalando Fulfillment Service' or you take everything into your own hands with 'Partner Fulfillment'. Read below what exactly that means.

Zalando Fulfillment Service

If you opt for the 'Zalando Fulfillment Service', you actually outsource the entire logistics process to Zalando. Not only do they arrange shipping and returns, but they also process any cancellations, send a shipping confirmation to your customer and provide customer service. Not only does this relieve your company enormously, it is also very useful for foreign shipments.

Partner Fulfillment

As a partner of Zalando you can also opt for 'Partner Fulfillment'. That means that you arrange everything yourself. If you opt for this, you must meet a lot of requirements. Think of, for example, packaging requirements and the enclosing of delivery documents. Examples of agreements you make with Zalando are:

• Your customer service team always responds to questions within 24 hours and is available by phone and email from Monday to Saturday from 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM. However, this is only for cases where Zalando cannot answer a customer question.
• You meet Zalando's delivery time standards. For example, you deliver within 4 days in the Netherlands and Germany.
• You process returns within 14 days of shipment by the customer.
• You inform Zalando about a shipment within 12 hours.
• The delivery person who delivers the package to the end customer must work together with Zalando.
• You always deliver orders with waybill, return label and return label.
• You package your products individually in a transparent polybag or shoe box (in the case of shoes).

Selling on Zalando, and countless other marketplaces!

Of course you don't want to be left behind next to your competitor! Starting to sell through Zalando almost immediately leads to a more favorable market position. You will be found under a big brand name in all kinds of European countries. But do you want an even greater reach and efficiently integrate your products to the Zalando marketplace? Then ProductFlow can help you with this.

ProductFlow is not only a PIM system, but also a handy Marketplace Integrator. This way you can easily sell your fashion accessories not only via Zalando, but also via, for example, bol.com, Kaufland, eBay, Decathlon, Google Shopping and Facebook.

Integrate products on Zalando

Are you curious which marketplace integrations are beneficial for your range? ProductFlow's marketplace experts are happy to advise you on this. Have you found the appropriate marketplaces? Then it is time to start selling. If you want to sell on Zalando, you need different plug-ins to integrate your assortment. That way you add images that meet Zalando's requirements, upload a product description and write something about your company.

That is quite a nice job, but takes an infinitely long time with a large assortment. Our marketplace integrator makes this process a lot easier. Not only that: you don't have to make all the adjustments separately for all marketplaces. For example, if you already sell via bol.com using ProductFlow, we have arranged the integration of your products on the Zalando marketplace for you very quickly!