Zalando now provides brands with their own virtual shop environments, where they can experiment with content marketing and curate their offer. The so-called Brand Homes are supposed to increase the duration and frequency of visits.
More daily visitors
Online platforms are increasingly evolving into virtual shops, where brands can show their best with videos, content and a curated assortment. In September Amazon launched Luxury Stores for large fashion houses, now Zalando follows suit with Brand Homes.
Partners of the fashion retailer receive their own page on which they can display campaigns, content and a curated selection of products. Conversely, consumers can now follow the brands and their virtual ‘homes’. In this way Zalando not only hopes to become a destination for shopping, but also a medium that consumers use for inspiration and discovery.
The goal is to increase the engagement of customers and the time they spend on Zalando. Millions of customers already visit the e-tailer on a daily basis, but that is exactly the number that Brand Homes still aims to increase. Today, customers spend an average of 80 minutes per month on the platform, with 80% of visits and 70% of orders coming from mobile devices. “Which puts us directly into our customers’ hands and pockets, playing an indispensable role in their life”, says Christoph Lütke Schelhowe, Vice President Demand, Customer Acquisition & Engagement.
Virtual retail real estate
Brands that collaborate with Zalando get access to a content management tool where they can customize their content and create specific collections by selecting the products they want to show. This makes it possible, for example, to highlight a particular category or theme, from sustainability to snakers.
A key feature of the tool is that Zalando also gives direct access to data: brands can monitor how their content performs in different countries and product groups. Of course, the German platform also wants to sell additional marketing services: brands can connect their Brand Homes to marketing via Zalando Marketing Services.
“With Brand Homes, brands become much more visible, because we offer them more virtual real estate for telling their story and curating relevant content and collections. That way, partners that add high-quality content to the Zalando experience get rewarded with organic followership growth, which is an especially great opportunity for lesser known brands to reach new customers”, according to Christoph Lütke Schelhowe.
