Zalando

What they do

Zalando runs one of Europe's largest online destinations for fashion, shoes and beauty. It sells both as a retailer and as a marketplace for partner brands, and it operates Lounge by Zalando, an off-price shopping club. Behind the storefront sits a large logistics network and a technology platform, which Zalando increasingly sells to other brands through its business-to-business arm. Since 2025 it has also owned ABOUT YOU, a former Hamburg rival.

Why it matters

Zalando is one of the few European consumer internet companies that grew to continental scale against American competition. It now describes itself as a technology platform for fashion and lifestyle, and that ambition explains its strategy. Rather than only selling clothes, it wants to be the operating system for fashion e-commerce in Europe, offering fulfilment, returns handling and software to brands that would otherwise build their own.

The acquisition of ABOUT YOU, completed in July 2025 and followed by a full takeover in November 2025, consolidated the German market and brought in Scayle, ABOUT YOU's commerce software. The company is also investing heavily in AI, from personalised discovery and size advice to assistants that help customers navigate its catalogue.

Products to know

• Zalando: the core fashion and lifestyle shopping platform.
• Lounge by Zalando: the members-only off-price shopping club.
• ZEOS: logistics and services offered to other brands and retailers.
• ABOUT YOU: the fashion platform acquired in 2025.

The German angle

Robert Gentz and David Schneider founded Zalando in Berlin in October 2008, with early investment from the Samwer brothers. It became the defining success of that era of Berlin start-ups: it listed in Frankfurt in 2014 and joined the DAX in 2021. Its headquarters in Berlin-Friedrichshain is a landmark of the city's tech economy, and Zalando also shaped the talent pool that seeded many later Berlin companies.