Subject areaChannels and tools
Zalando is the fashion e-commerce company founded in 2008 in Berlin by Robert Gentz and David Schneider.
It is among the first e-commerce companies born in Europe to grow on a continental scale: it started by selling shoes online in Germany and became one of Europe's main clothing platforms. It built its success on free shipping and returns, which remove the customer's risk of choosing the wrong size, and later opened up to third-party brands as a marketplace (a digital square where several sellers trade).
For marketing it is a European example of logistics becoming part of the offer: free returns cost money, but they work as a promise to the customer.
An example
A customer orders the same pair of shoes in two sizes, keeps the right one and returns the other at no cost: buying online stops being a gamble.
Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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