Zalando's strategy in action: The evolution of our B2B growth engine

Building an operating system for fashion & lifestyle  

The core of our B2B strategy is our ZEOS group of companies, which opens up Zalando's logistics infrastructure, software, and service capabilities to be a key enabler for brands' and retailers' e-commerce business. ZEOS, together with Tradebyte and SCAYLE, supports the underlying transactions regardless of whether they take place on or off the Zalando platform. We’ve seen major progress this year in both our fulfilment and software layers.

Taking multi-channel fulfilment to the next level

In 2025, ZEOS placed a strong emphasis on strategically scaling the logistics layer, an effort that has dramatically expanded our reach and deepened our market penetration across Europe. We have grown our live merchant base to over 60. Most recently, we expanded the partnership with Marks & Spencer to power the British retailer’s entire continental European own e-commerce business from next year on. In addition, & Other Stories is now live on Zalando in Germany, with further markets to follow, leveraging the capabilities of ZEOS and Tradebyte. 

Building on this momentum, our partnership with NEXT was pivotal in jointly adding additional capacity for multi-channel fulfilment, resulting in ZEOS now being available in 24 markets and allowing us to serve a comprehensive 18 sales channels, including Zalando and major marketplaces (such as Otto or ABOUT YOU) alongside brands' own webshops. 

This proven capability for growth and market entry was further validated by our confirmation as TikTok Shop’s preferred logistics partner for their significant expansion into Germany, France, and Italy earlier this year. Ultimately, the value of this expanded network is reflected in strong partner success: we are seeing more than half of our live multi-channel fulfilment partners already expanding into additional sales channels, a testament to the value of the network and the streamlined process offered by new integration options like ChannelEngine, or existing options such as via our integrators Tradebyte and Rithum.

Accelerating the software layer

Extending our software solutions is another key value driver. This year saw significant steps in creating a holistic e-commerce operating system by accelerating Tradebyte and, going forward, adding SCAYLE to our software stack. 

We're progressing with individual software developments, including the launch of the Replenishment Engine, our first digital ZEOS Logistics product. This tool helps our merchants grow their business by supporting them with a decision on what, how much and when to replenish to our fulfilment centres to maximise profit. In addition, we unveiled ZEOS One. This all-in-one merchant portal is the control panel that empowers fashion and lifestyle merchants to make smarter sales decisions, streamline complex logistics, and manage all fulfilment operations across channels. Backed by Zalando’s retail expertise, it gives merchants the freedom to grow their business independently, efficiently, and profitably. Another milestone was the launch of the ZEOS Shopify application. This opens up ZEOS multi-channel fulfilment to Shopify's massive merchant base in Europe, providing benefits like faster internationalisation, reduced operational complexity, and cost savings.

This is the perfect complement to the offering of Tradebyte, our marketplace integrator which provides merchants with insights and benchmarks displayed on the TB.360 dashboard, launched this summer. This tool allows brands to optimise their trading in a multichannel world. Also, Tradebyte enabled Walmart as a first US channel. This setup can be complex for merchants, especially international brands, due platform-specific requirements and operational workflows. With Tradebyte, however, they have a reliable partner to manage this complexity and ensure smooth market entry. 

This, alongside our collaboration with ABOUT YOU's SCAYLE unit, reflects Zalando’s commitment to building a robust software ecosystem that strengthens our partners' most strategic digital channel: their own e-commerce.

SCAYLE: Complementing our powerful operational backbone

Speaking of SCAYLE: ABOUT YOU’s subsidiary is now complementing our software stack, providing Zalando with a prime enterprise shop system to support brands also on their own e-commerce channels. We have already developed the first version of our best-in-class integrations with Tradebyte and ZEOS, ensuring frictionless customer journeys and seamless multichannel integration. Ultimately, this combination offers a truly holistic e-commerce operating system, accelerating value creation and expanding our combined software layer, potentially outside of Europe.

Only recently, DEICHMANN, Europe’s leading shoe retailer, went live with SCAYLE in its home market Germany. Netto Marken-Discount is enhancing its digital shopping experience through its partnership with SCAYLE – laying a foundation for its 360-degree strategy as one of the leading players in German grocery retail. These partnerships show how SCAYLE can deliver modern retail concepts efficiently and at scale across different verticals.

What’s next?

Looking ahead, the next phase of our growth is clearly defined by the enormous B2B opportunity. The European fashion and lifestyle market remains highly complex and fragmented, which actively prevents many brands and retailers from fully capitalising on massive cross-border opportunities. In response, we will continue to establish ZEOS as the essential partner to navigate this complexity and overcome industry inefficiencies for our partners. 

Therefore, our focus for the coming year will be on a deeper expansion of our partner base, collaboratively developing and advancing solutions to ensure they directly meet their needs. This includes adding more channels and markets to make our Logistics-as-a-Service solution even richer for all our partners. A key element of this is integrating the ABOUT YOU channel much closer, particularly regarding country expansion and merchant cross-docking.

Crucially, we will also accelerate the development of our services layer, in which we intend to pilot content solutions next year. Additionally, we will further deepen our integration with SCAYLE. These steps demonstrate our commitment to developing the leading e-commerce operating system in Europe.

Would you like to know how the operating system works with ZEOS, Tradebyte and SCAYLE? Watch our masterclass to find out more!