Zalando Invests in Further Growth - Opens Fulfillment Center Near Stockholm  

Zalando, Europe’s leading online fashion platform, successfully completed its location search to open its first Nordic fulfillment center in Sweden later this year. Together with the developer NREP Logicenters, Zalando will build a fulfillment center in Brunna, situated in the county of Stockholm. To meet the demand of the Nordic customers, and to further penetrate the market, investing in convenience is crucial. The first parcels are set to leave the fulfillment center later this year.

“Zalando has a bold but feasible vision for the Nordic markets. We want to enhance our customer proposition and increase our revenues to 1 billion EUR in the upcoming years. In order to do so, we need to further invest in our platform strategy and expand our logistics network locally so we can get closer to our Nordic customers. I am happy to announce that operations in our first fulfillment center near Stockholm will start within the next months”, said Rubin Ritter, Co-CEO at Zalando.

The Stockholm fulfillment center will ensure that Zalando’s strong and growing customer base experiences a more convenient consumer journey and receives orders faster in all Nordic markets. First tests and operations will start this year, full operations will be up and running in 2018. The warehouse in the Stockholm area will decrease lead times significantly, securing possible next day deliveries in all Nordic capitals (Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo) and the potential for same day delivery in Stockholm. When the fulfillment center is ramped up to full speed, Zalando will be able to cut lead times in half across the Nordic region (to 1-2 days for Sweden and Denmark, and 1-3 days for Norway and Finland).

“The Nordic e-commerce market is mature and developing fast. Ensuring consumer satisfaction, shortening lead times and providing a fashionable assortment are essential elements moving forward. This is why we are investing in establishing a new 30,000 sqm fulfillment center near Stockholm and extending our selection of more than 100 Nordic brands, with the latest additions being Holzweiler, Hunkydory and House of Dagmar”, said Kenneth Melchior, Cluster Head Nordics at Zalando. “Having this setup in place, we are also thinking of future test pilots for innovative services such as return on demand.”

“We are very pleased that Zalando has chosen NREP Logicenters as their partner for their expansion in the Nordics. As a leading provider of modern logistics properties, we will be able to support Zalando’s future growth and are looking forward to a successful partnership, said Rickard S. Dahlberg, Partner and co-Founder at NREP.

The fulfillment center in Brunna was chosen mainly due to its strategic location and advanced infrastructure, which is ideal for catering to all Danish, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish customers. It will be operated by an experienced logistics provider and create a few hundred jobs. Zalando started to internationalize its logistics network in December 2015 by opening the first fulfillment center outside Germany in the North of Italy. This was followed by a fulfillment centre near Stettin in Poland, which was inaugurated in November last year. In the beginning of 2017 another warehouse was opened close to Paris in France which will now be followed by the most recent addition in Sweden later this year.

ABOUT ZALANDO
Zalando (https://corporate.zalando.com) is Europe’s leading online fashion platform for women, men and children. We offer our customers a one-stop, convenient shopping experience with an extensive selection of fashion articles including shoes, apparel and accessories, with free delivery and returns. Our assortment of over 1,500 international brands ranges from popular global brands, fast fashion and local brands, and is complemented by our private label products. Our localized offering addresses the distinct preferences of our customers in each of the 15 European markets we serve: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland and the United Kingdom. Our logistics network with four centrally located fulfillment centers in Germany allows us to efficiently serve our customers throughout Europe, supported by a warehouse in Northern Italy with a focus on local customer needs. We believe that our integration of fashion, operations and online technology give us the capability to deliver a compelling value proposition to both our customers and fashion brand partners. Zalando’s shops attract over 160 million visits per month. In the first quarter of 2017, more than 68 percent of traffic came from mobile devices, resulting in 20.4 million active customers by the end of the quarter.

CONTACT ZALANDO
Sigrid Dalberg-Krajewski / Corporate Communications Nordics
sigrid.dalberg-krajewski@zalando.se