The third Zalando Technology Hack Week kicks off with over 100 project ideas

•  official opening of the annual innovation week at Zalando
• over 100 project ideas submitted to the Ideas Board 
• about 700 Zalando Technology employees take part around Germany

Berlin, 15th December 2014 – The third Zalando Hack week starts today with the tagline ‘May the code be with you’. Around 700 employees from all branches of the Technology department will participate. During the innovation week Product Managers, Developers, Testers and UX Designers put down their daily work in order to attend to their creative ideas, to develop concepts and to build first prototypes. The week is complemented by numerous activities such as the Game Night, coaching sessions on Design Thinking and a cooperation with Fab Lab Berlin, supporting the projects with 3D printers, smart wearables and laser cutting. The event ends on Friday with the Hack Week Awards.

“At Zalando we are continually working to set new standards in fashion e-commerce – as we have been doing since the very beginning. This requires a high level of agility”, said Robert Gentz, Founder and Member of the Management Board at Zalando. “Hack Week offers our Technology teams the chance to implement their ideas and develop their own prototypes within a short space of time and without any limitations. We are extremely excited to see the creative products that will be created this year.”

Hack Week Teams start today with over 100 project ideas. “The range and scope of projects is impressive: from shop and virtual reality features, to new process tools for our logistics centres and creative payment solutions. The ideas don’t just focus on the shopping experience of our customers, but also on our collaborations with brand partners and between employees. Many of these projects will be implemented later in the shop, backend or as internal tools, for example the initial prototype for the Photo Search function in the Zalando App came out of last year’s Hack Week under the working title Shazalando”, explained Philipp Erler, SVP Zalando Technology.

The event is taking place at a number of sites and across different departments: Developers, Product Managers and members of the Quality Assurance and Customer Experience teams in Berlin will network with the Tech teams at Zalando’s fulfilment centers in Erfurt and Mönchengladbach and in the Technology site in Dortmund. On Friday the teams will present their results, hackathon-style, with a 2 minute pitch to the in-house expert jury. The best project ideas are announced during the awards ceremony, with winners in 11 categories, including ‘Best Software Coding Project’, ‘Best Innovation’ and ‘Most Geeky Project’. 

Further information and exciting Hack Week insights can be found on the Zalando Tech Blog, flickr and Twitter @ZalandoTech. 

ABOUT ZALANDO
Zalando (https://corporate.zalando.com) is a leading pure-play online fashion destination in Europe 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 three centrally located fulfillment centers in Germany allows us to efficiently serve our customers throughout Europe. 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 websites attract more than 100 million visits per month with 43% coming from mobile devices during the third quarter 2014, resulting in 14.1 million active customers by the end of the quarter. After six years of operations, our business has grown to €2.1 billion in revenue for the twelve-month period ended September 30th, 2014.

CONTACT ZALANDO
Matteo Bovio
Corporate Communications
Phone: +49 (0)30 20008 - 8512
Email: matteo.bovio@zalando.it