Fashion
Over the past three months, German fashion webshop Zalando has attracted more than a billion visitors in one quarter for the first time. This has also resulted in a substantial increase in the company's turnover.
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General
German Zalando and Dutch bol.com are building on their sustainability: while the former says its operations are now completely climate neutral, the latter has opened a separate shop including only sustainable products, because "sustainability is a commercial success".
Fashion web shop Zalando has opened a temporary shop in Madrid, where customers can try on virtual clothing. However, there are no actual items of clothing in the Spanish shop.
Uncertainty about the right size keeps many consumers from ordering shoes and clothing online. It also causes a lot of unnecessary returns, so Zalando works on innovative solutions.
Zalando tests a second-hand shop for women's fashion items in Berlin, called Zircle. It is the second venture of the German e-tailer into second-hand clothing, following the app Zalando Wardrobe.
Belgian shoe store chain Schoenen Torfs has seen its profits more than halved, due to the success of its web shop. Turnover went up, but costs soared.
Zalando has increased its forecast for the full year 2019 after it had an excellent second quarter, in which turnover went up 20 % to 1.6 billion euros.
Property
German internet company Zalando is about to build a new mega-distribution centre in Bleiswijk in the Netherlands. The project will yield 1500 jobs and involves an investment of 200 million euros.
German fashion web shop Zalando wants to stimulate the direct delivery of goods through partnered fashion stores, after it turned out the German e-tailer lost a billion euros worth in turnover last year due to supply shortages in its own warehouses.
Cosmetics
After a successful launch in Austria, Germany and Poland, Zalando now launches its beauty range in Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy and Sweden. A new campaign accompanies the expansion.
Zalando is introducing shipping costs in Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom, following an earlier test in Italy. This seems to mark the end of the free era, even though the German company says there are no plans to further expand the measure.
During the first three months of 2019, German fashion web shop Zalando has exceeded expectations and expects to have made a profit after tightening its return policy.
German fashion web shop Zalando will be integrating its private labels into the rest of the platform. The idea is for these labels to compete less with external brands. For that reason, the separate private label division will be terminated, which may result in jobs being cut.
German e-tailer Zalando has decided to expand its management board with a Chief Financial Officer and a Chief Technology Officer. At the same time, it will redefine the job descriptions for its three co-CEOs.
The Netherlands is the second market where Zalando's physical partner programme will be introduced. More than two years after German customers, Dutch web shoppers too will be able to see on the web shop whether the item they like can be delivered through a local store.
Zalando may have found a new trick to limit the number of returns: an oversized tag should prevent people from wearing the clothes and then sending them back. Returns will only be accepted if the tag is still attached.
