Zalando to discontinue private label business

Zalando, Europe’s biggest online fashion platform, announced in a press release yesterday that it will bundle its private labels and its partner brand assortment under one roof as of April 1st 2019. This means that the e-tailer’s private label business within zLabels will be discontinued.

“zLabels was founded in 2010 in order to fill the ‘blank spots’ in our assortment, offering our customers products that were not being provided by our partner brands. In the last ten years, our business has become more attractive to both customers and brands. Since we are committed to our platform strategy, and as we continuously take on board new brands and verticals, we decided to refine our assortment including our own labels,” explains Zalando’s co-CEO David Schneider in the press release.

Zalando's private labels like Anna Field, Kiomi, etc. to be reviewed

Starting from spring/summer 2020, Zalando’s private apparel labels will offer customers’ everyday essentials as well as “a focused footwear and accessories assortment”. The eleven private label brands - Anna Field, Even & Odd, Friboo, Fullstop, Kiomi, Mint & Berry, Pier One, Twintip, Your Turn, Zalando Essentials and Zign - will be kept for the time being and reviewed in line with this new assortment strategy at a later point, said the Berlin-based company.

“This approach will allow us to work together under one roof, with a strategic direction for our own assortment which will be more complementary to our partner brands. This is very much in line with our ambition of becoming the starting point for fashion. We are convinced that our strong customer focus and platform strategy are the right path to success,” elaborates Schneider.

For the 550 zLabels employees, this means moving into the Zalando Fashion Store or taking a comparable position that will be offered to them by Zalando. “We have a lot of talent within the current zLabels team and it is really important to us to keep this talent within the Zalando family. We are looking forward to working on a complementary strategy and to have both our private labels and our partner brand assortment under one roof”, says Schneider.

At Zalando’s annual update on February 28th, the company had not mentioned the plan to rebuild its private label business.

Photos: zLabels website