The Old Logic Is Breaking Down

For years, product content in fashion e-commerce was treated as a cost to be managed. Every SKU needed photography. Every market needed assets. Every new channel demanded more material. The cost scaled linearly with volume — and that meant brands constantly made trade-offs: fewer images, slower time-to-market, underfunded product pages.

That logic is now being dismantled.

AI has made it possible — for the first time — to scale content without scaling cost. The result is not just operational efficiency. It is a structural shift in how competition on fashion marketplaces works. And the brands and platforms that recognised this earliest are already pulling ahead.

Zalando: The Signal Everyone Should Be Reading

When Zalando reported its full-year outlook in March 2026, the headline numbers were strong: a forecast jump of 12–25 % in adjusted operating profit, a share buyback of up to 300 million euros, and shares leaping 12% on the day — their best performance since March 2024.

But the more significant signal was in how Zalando explained the growth. Co-CEO David Schröder attributed it directly to AI:

“We have 70 % more content now, basically at the same kind of cost.”

Seventy percent more content. Same cost. That is not incremental improvement — that is the unit economics of content production fundamentally resetting.

Zalando also pointed to AI-generated product images as a driver of efficiency in ad creation, and flagged AI virtual try-on as a tool for reducing returns — historically one of the most expensive structural problems in online fashion.

The takeaway is not that Zalando is doing something clever with technology. It is that content — long a fixed operational cost — is beginning to behave like a variable one.

Marketplace Universe Insight
When the marginal cost of an additional product image approaches zero, the competitive logic of a marketplace changes entirely. Content stops being a constraint and starts being a weapon.

Luxury Is Not Sitting This Out

One persistent assumption in the AI-and-fashion conversation is that the premium segment will resist. Brand DNA, heritage, creative control — these are real concerns. But the data from early adopters tells a different story.

Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO of Etro and former General Manager of Dolce & Gabbana, spoke at BoF VOICES 2025 about the brand’s results after partnering with AI content provider PIXELMODA:

“With PIXELMODA we have been growing e-comm sales close to 50% per year for 2 years — and we are spending less than what we did 3 years ago.”

50 % annual e-commerce growth. Lower cost than before. That is the kind of P&L impact that tends to end the philosophical debate about AI fairly quickly.

Cardinali was also candid about how the shift happened internally. Etro began by using AI to improve precision and consistency in product imagery, then expanded into campaign content — including the SS24 “Nowhere” campaign, which used AI to build imaginative visual worlds around products. The concern that AI would dilute brand DNA has not materialised. According to Cardinali:

“It’s very difficult, almost impossible, to see the difference between a non-AI image and an AI-assisted one.”

The human element — real photographers, real models, real stylists — remained central. What changed is how efficiently that human team works, and how many additional assets can be generated from each shoot. The freed-up budget and creative capacity then went into the work where human judgement genuinely cannot be replicated: editorial, campaign, storytelling.

How the Production Model Actually Works

To understand why this matters at scale, it helps to understand what modern AI content production actually looks like. The industry has largely converged on two complementary modes — and the combination of both is where the real economics shift happens.

Mode 1: AI-Assisted Production A human team — model, photographer, stylist — shoots on set, but guided in real time by AI that checks every frame against the brand’s specific visual guidelines. Nothing is generated or synthetic. The output is traditional photography, produced faster and with significantly less rework and waste. The AI acts as a quality layer, not a replacement for the shoot itself.

Mode 2: Generative AI Using AI-assisted images as inputs, generative AI then produces additional assets per SKU: body swaps, alternative backgrounds, different poses, video clips, editorial shots. Content that previously required separate shoots, separate locations, and separate budgets can now be generated in hours.

Providers like PIXELMODA have built their entire service model around this two-layer approach — using the assisted shoot as the foundation and the generative layer as a multiplier. The results, across a client base of over 900 brands, make the case for the model plainly.

The cost impact is significant:

• Photography costs reduced by up to 70 %
• Video production costs reduced by up to 90 %
• Time-to-online cut by up to 50 %

And the revenue impact is equally measurable. According to PIXELMODA’s data:

• Moving from 4 images to 7+ per SKU reduces returns by 22 % (Shopify data)
• Adding video drives sales up by +10–20 %
• Aligning model ethnicity with target consumer demographics adds a further +10–25 % in conversion

The Missed Opportunity Most Brands Don’t See

Gianni Serazzi, who leads PIXELMODA, put the business case bluntly at BoF VOICES 2025:

“If you look at your business and you’re creating content for online the same way you were creating it 5 years ago, you’re probably missing anything between 10 % and 30–40 % of sales — now, this month.”

The uncomfortable truth is that this gap does not show up on a P&L as a line item. It is invisible — the sales that never happened, the conversions that never came, because the product page wasn’t good enough to close the deal.

Marketplace Universe Insight
Content gaps don’t announce themselves. You don’t see the sales you’re missing — you only see the ones you make. That’s what makes AI-driven content so structurally important: it makes previously invisible losses recoverable.

What This Means for Marketplace Competition

Here is where the argument gets structural.

Content volume and quality are already major inputs into marketplace ranking algorithms, conversion rates, and retail media performance. As AI makes richer content dramatically cheaper to produce, the baseline expectation on platforms will rise. What is a differentiator today — more images, video, diverse model representation — becomes table stakes in a short window.

That changes the nature of competitive advantage. Once AI content tools are widely available and the cost advantages compound for everyone who adopts them, content quality alone ceases to be a moat.

The brands that pull ahead will be those that use the newly freed-up capacity — budget, time, creative talent — more intelligently. That might mean:

• Faster creative testing across markets
• Deeper localisation (language, model ethnicity, cultural context)
• Higher investment in the data capabilities needed to understand which content actually converts, and where

The Uncomfortable Conclusion

The structural argument cuts both ways. If AI makes content production dramatically cheaper and faster for everyone, then the brands and marketplaces that benefit most will not be those who simply adopt the technology. They will be those who move earliest and build operational and strategic capabilities around it before the window closes.

Zalando’s framing — AI as a catalyst for both efficiency and growth simultaneously — is the version of this story that should be landing in boardrooms. Not AI as cost-cutting. Not AI as a creative experiment. AI as the mechanism by which the economics of marketplace competition fundamentally reset.

For fashion brands still treating content as a linear cost to be managed, that reset is already underway.

Key Learnings

• AI has broken the linear relationship between content volume and content cost. 70 % more content at the same cost (Zalando) is not an edge case — it is the new direction of travel.
• Premium and luxury brands are adopting AI, not resisting it. The Etro example shows that AI-assisted content can preserve brand DNA while delivering significant commercial results.
• The production model has structurally changed. AI-assisted shooting + generative AI output means 30+ assets per SKU, at a fraction of traditional cost.
• The revenue impact of richer content is measurable and significant. More images reduce returns. Adding video lifts conversion. Localised models drive further uplift.
• The gap is invisible until it’s gone. Brands not optimising their PDP content are losing sales they cannot see — and won’t recover until they change the workflow.
• Content quality will become table stakes, not a differentiator. Competitive advantage will shift toward execution, data, and how freed-up resources are reinvested.

PIXELMODA is a global provider of AI-assisted and AI-generated content for fashion and luxury e-commerce, working with over 900 brands across Europe, the US and Asia. For more information see pixelmoda.net 

04.05.2026 – Written by Ricarda Eichler, Journalist and Author for OHN

Der Beitrag How AI Transforms Fashion Marketplaces — From Content Bottleneck to Business Engine erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

These are the 47 most relevant B2C marketplaces for Fashion & Shoes in Europe in 2026

Last update 17.04.2026

The state of the European fashion market

Fashion remains the largest e-commerce category in Europe — but the headline numbers only tell half the story. According to ECDB, the market reached €149.4bn in 2024, is expected to grow to €156.6bn in 2025, and will hit €165.7bn in 2026. Online penetration keeps climbing alongside it, moving from roughly 35% in 2024 to nearly 38% in 2026. On paper, that looks like stable, predictable growth. In reality, it isn’t.

A disproportionate share of that YoY growth sits with a handful of players — most notably Shein and Temu. Add Zalando and a few strong regional platforms like OTTO, bol, Skroutz or Allegro, and you already cover most of the momentum. Behind those platforms, the picture changes.

For much of the mid-market, the last two years have been difficult — squeezed between rising competition, high return rates and constant pressure on margins. The moderate growth expected for 2026 doesn’t suggest that this will ease anytime soon.

Growth is still there. But it’s no longer evenly distributed.

And that has consequences for how the marketplace landscape evolves. Fashion combines massive scale with extreme assortment complexity: sizes, colours, seasons, styles, men’s, women’s, kids. Add to that the fact that marketplace models have been embedded in fashion for years, and the result is a category that doesn’t collapse into a handful of dominant platforms. It spreads across global generalists, fashion-first marketplaces, off-price ecosystems, recommerce players and highly specialised niches — all operating at the same time.

A leaner quadrant — but not a small one

Compared to the 2025 edition, we have significantly reduced the number of platforms: from 66 marketplaces to 47 in 2026.

Not because the market shrank. But because we stopped pretending everything is equally relevant. We applied stricter criteria — focusing on real marketplace activity, clearer platform structures and actual commercial relevance. But at the same time, fashion doesn’t lend itself to a purely data-driven filter: Too many platforms operate in hybrid models. Too much activity happens in places that don’t fully show up in clean KPIs. And too many decisions are still driven by where brands actually sell — not where models say they should.

That’s why this update combines data with direct input from our Marketplace Universe Fashion Community. And integrated knowledge directly from the field.

And one more thing we changed: the X-axis. We moved away from “Budget Segment → Luxus/Premium” and now use Price Driven → Brand Driven — because it better reflects how brands and sellers actually navigate this landscape.

What’s changed?

The lower-priced end of the market has become impossible to ignore. Shein, Temu and AliExpress are no longer fringe cases or uncomfortable additions. They are structural forces in European fashion.

At the same time, off-price has become more visible as its own ecosystem. Best Secret, Veepee, Privalia, Showroomprivé, Secret Sales, DreiVIP, Afound and Dress-for-less are not just stock clearance channels. They are part of how fashion inventory is redistributed at scale.

Recommerce is getting bigger — but still finding its place. The business models like Vinted and Vestiare Collective are evolving fast, and a lot of players from outside the category are trying to get a piece of it too. Watch this space.

There are some marketplaces we deleted from our Fashion Quadrant from last year, because they are not really relevant –  yet or anymore –  for the Fashion Category in Europe. So whom did we delete from this overview? sarenza, Outletcity Metzingen, Yoox (not operating as a marketplace anymore), van Graaf, BrandAlley, Clubefashion, trendyol (mainly in Turkey), avocadostore, Ahlens, M&S, Galeries Lafayette, de Bijenkorf, Harvey Nichols, Harrods, Globus, Douglas, very, ellos, Modivo, Le BHV/Marais.

First time on the quadrant: Vestiaire Collective, Vinted, AliExpress, Frasers Group & TikTok Shop 

And then there is the growing cluster of hybrid specialists and fashion-led marketplaces: Zalando, About You, breuninger, Next, La Redoute, Miinto, Fashionette, Fashion Days, WE Fashion, ASOS,  and others. Different models, different strengths — but all relevant enough for some use cases to remain in the big picture.

The most important players

A few platforms still define the shape of the market.

Zalando remains the clearest reference point for fashion marketplaces in Europe. It combines scale, platform logic and a strong brand environment more convincingly than almost anyone else.

About You continues to build beyond its home region and has become one of the most important fashion-native marketplace players in Europe.

Amazon remains unavoidable. Not because it is the most fashion-specific platform, but because of its scale, traffic and role in basics, repeat purchases and price comparison.

A highly differentiated ecosystem

What makes the fashion marketplace landscape so difficult to compress is exactly what makes it so interesting: there is no single winning model.

At one end, you have price-driven generalists such as AliExpress, Temu, Allegro and eMAG. These platforms compete through scale, low prices and broad reach.

Then there are the large generalists with stronger local roots or more curated environments, including Amazon, eBay, Kaufland, Miravia, Galaxus, bol, OTTO, Skroutz, El Corte Inglés, John Lewis and Manor.

But fashion in Europe is not defined by generalists alone.

A large part of the category is carried by platforms that are much more fashion-specific – and price-driven. Shein has become the clearest example of a highly price-driven specialist. Showroomprivé, Vinted and Spartoo also play in that broader space, albeit with very different models.

The off-price segment follows its own rules. Best Secret, Veepee, Privalia, Secret Sales, DreiVIP, Afound and Dress-for-less are all built around deal logic, inventory pressure and brand offloading.

And then there is the broad group of more brand-led or segment-led fashion specialists: About You, Happy Size, H&M, Humanic, TikTok Shop, Limango, WE Fashion, Next, ASOS, Debenhams, Frasers Group, Fashionette, Fashion Days, INNO, Miinto, Wehkamp and La Redoute.

Finally, the right edge of the market remains reserved for the clearest fashion-first and brand-led environments: Zalando, Vestiaire Collective, Breuninger and Farfetch.

Conclusion

The 2026 update shows a more edited, curated view of the marketplace landscape for fashion & shoes. We cut the number of platforms from 66 to 47 — not to flatten the category, but to make the landscape more readable without losing what makes fashion different. Because fashion marketplaces in Europe stretch across price logic, brand logic, off-price, recommerce, niche positioning and local heritage. That makes the category messier, but also leaves plenty of room for growth opportunities and profitable niches aside from the big players.

Check out all our other Category and Country Quadrants here!

Der Beitrag Marketplace Quadrant Fashion & Shoes 2026 erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

In a nutshell

Italian luxury retailer Rinascente cut fixed costs by double digits after partnering with Pixelmoda in 2024 for AI-assisted fashion product images. The new hybrid model – 70% visuals from brands, 30% co-produced – keeps the signature “Rinascente look” while also enabling savings in the company’s own studios. Production speed stayed the same, but workflows became leaner and more flexible. AI supports post-production tasks like retouching and color correction, with future potential for generative use – always under human creative control to preserve luxury quality.
Time to Read: appr. 5 min

Luxury in the Digital Shop Window – with Top-Notch product images

The Italian luxury retailer Rinascente represents an experience that blends tradition and modernity – both in its historic department stores and online. To ensure that its digital presence reflects the same sense of exclusivity as its in-store experience, visual quality plays a central role. Since 2024, the company has partnered with Italian content specialist Pixelmoda – achieving measurable results in efficiency and cost optimization.

For a luxury retailer like Rinascente, high-quality product images are not an extra – they are an absolute necessity. More than 70% of visuals come directly from brand partners. The remaining 30% are produced in collaboration with Pixelmoda – primarily in the Ready-to-Wear, Accessories, and Kids categories.

The challenge: bringing together a wide range of international brands, each with its own visual language, under one consistent aesthetic. The goal is a distinct “Rinascente look” that conveys luxury, attention to detail, and modernity – whether customers are shopping online or in-store.

Example 1: Pixelmoda’s proprietary AI ensures that the “Rinascente look” is instantly recognizable: static posture, model cut below the nose, and series with front and rear views, full-body image, and detailed view. The AI provides specific information to support the correct placement of the model, optimal lighting and shooting position, and the best possible camera settings. These settings are reproducible, so that an identical setting can be quickly created even for reshoots or follow-up shoots.

From In-House Studios to a Flexible Model

Until 2023, Rinascente managed all content production internally, operating eight photo studios and shooting up to 1,300 items per week. Strict styling and lighting guidelines ensured consistency, but maintaining this infrastructure came with high fixed costs. By outsourcing content production to Pixelmoda, the high fixed costs for studio rental and maintenance were eliminated.

To preserve each brand’s vision, Rinascente has optimized its processes by receiving a greater number of visual assets directly from the brands themselves. As a result, the production of the remaining product images needed to be optimized. The partnership with Pixelmoda was therefore a strategic decision to reduce costs and optimize workflows – not to increase production speed.

Example 2: Thanks to optimal settings, AI assistance enables maximum photo quality. Not only is the pattern on the cap razor sharp and distortion-free, but the knit texture of the material is also immediately visible.

Test Run and Launch of the Collaboration

Discussions with Pixelmoda began in early 2024. Following an in-depth evaluation, Rinascente initiated a non-binding test run, which proved crucial for defining the collaboration.

Pixelmoda provided its full resources to analyze technical processes and automate as many steps as possible – from the shipment of goods to the upload of retouched images. This test helped refine workflows and clarify interfaces. After several months of preparation, the first regular production batch started in September 2024.

Example 3: Here, too, the typical “Rinascente look” is immediately recognizable. The images also convey a concrete impression of the thickness of the fabric and how the material behaves when worn – for example, when tying the belt. The feel of the material can also be sensed from the photo alone.

Results: Same Quality, Lower Fixed Costs

Thanks to this strategic collaboration, Rinascente has achieved cost savings that reached double-digit percentages, proving that the same high standards can be maintained with a more flexible and economically sustainable model. The biggest savings came from rent, utilities, and studio maintenance.

Production time remained the same – about four to five days from product arrival to publication – but time savings was never the main objective. What matters most for Rinascente was that quality and efficiency have remained on par with the previous in-house setup. By switching to an external provider, the company has been able to maintain the high quality of its visual content while achieving greater operational and economic flexibility.

Visual Consistency and AI Integration

To ensure consistent brand presentation, Rinascente works with detailed visual guidelines that Pixelmoda follows closely. These apply to all styles – from streetwear to haute couture. Artificial intelligence is currently used mainly in post-production, for tasks such as retouching and color adjustments. The teams are now exploring the use of generative AI to create image variations more efficiently.

Example 4: A striped shirt – often a nightmare for photographers and product managers. This is because the fine lines easily blur into a wavy appearance in two-dimensional views. With the help of AI, Pixelmoda can quickly align the model, shirt, and lighting so that this does not happen. As a result, the appearance of the shirt is clearly recognizable.

Looking Ahead

This technology (AI) will help the company to further reduce production time and costs, provided it is guided by human creativity. Visual content will continue to play an increasingly strategic role for Rinascente, not just showcasing products but creating experiences – interactive, personalized, and omnichannel.

Want to know more? Then check out episode 126 of our podcast “Let’s talk Marketplace!” In it, Gianni Serazzi from Pixelmoda discusses with Valerie and Ingrid how AI can help when it acts as a co-pilot for photographers and models on set, controlling lighting, poses, compliance with style guides, and quality assurance how this works in practice and why it is a real performance lever for fashion brands and retailers.

Key Learnings

The Rinascente case shows how digital excellence and economic efficiency can go hand in hand. By partnering with Pixelmoda for AI-assisted fashion product images, the retailer maintains luxury-grade visual quality, optimizes internal resources, and gains the flexibility needed to thrive in an increasingly digital luxury market – all while reducing fixed costs by a double-digit percentage.

• 1. Hybrid Content Model
  The fashion retailer Rinascente combines 70% brand visuals with 30% Pixelmoda-produced photos, ensuring a consistent and premium “Rinascente look” across all fashion categories.
• 2. Strategic Outsourcing
  The partnership with Pixelmoda focused on cost reduction and workflow efficiency, not faster photo production – proving outsourcing can maintain luxury standards.
• 3. From In-House to Flexible
  By cutting back on internal photo studios, Rinascente was able to reduce rental and maintenance costs while maintaining the same quality and a turnaround time of 4–5 days.
• 4. Pilot & Automation
  A test-and-learn phase helped optimize workflows and integrate automation for efficient, AI-supported content production.
• 5. Same Quality, Lower Costs
  Rinascente achieved double-digit cost savings in the production of his fashion product photos  without losing visual excellence – with AI as a tool, not a substitute for human creativity.

You can find the most important facts about Pixelmoda in our Service Provider Portait: https://marketplace-universe.com/service-provider-portrait-pixelmoda/

Der Beitrag Best Practice Product images – How Rinascente reduces costs with Pixelmoda erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

Zalando’s Marketplace Evolution: Growth, Challenges & The Road Ahead

On March 6, 2025, Zalando released its full-year financial results for 2024, revealing growth in revenue and profitability, but also raising key questions about its marketplace strategy and B2B ambitions. The report naturally focuses on Zalando’s strengths, highlighting a bright future – but do the numbers reveal if you dig deeper? And what do they mean for marketplace people from the fashion industry who rely on Zalando as their key marketplace? Follow me on a Zalando deep dive right into the hidden parts of the fashion giant’s financial report.

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Zalando Deep Dive into the Marketplace Numbers

A Change in Reporting—Harder to Compare Marketplace Growth

In FY 2023, Zalando changed its calculation method, making it impossible to compare marketplace share before and after 2023. Now, revenues are separated into B2C (Retail Business, Partner Business (Partner Program (PP) and Connected Retail (CR)) and Zalando Marketing Services (ZMS)) and B2B (ZEOS, ZFS, Tradebyte, Services), making it difficult to assess how much of Zalando’s growth is actually marketplace-driven.

A Profitable B2C Business – But Not Driven by Marketplace Growth?

While Zalando’s B2C segment grew in 2024, profitability improved even more significantly:

• B2C adjusted EBIT surged from €311M (3.3% margin) in 2023 to €489M (5.1% margin) in 2024.
• Gross margin increased to 43.5%, driven by higher retail profitability and better operational efficiencies.

However, the key question remains: Is this success coming from a growing marketplace model, or is Zalando still prioritizing its retail-driven business?

How Big is Zalando’s Partner Business Really?

Zalando has big ambitions for its Partner Business, positioning it as the core of its marketplace evolution. But is it actually moving in that direction?

• In 2023, Zalando stated that its Partner Business GMV share was roughly 34%, with a target of 40-50% by 2028.
• In 2024, this only grew slightly to 34.3% (2023: 33.6%), showing slow marketplace expansion.
• GMV from the Partner Business grew by just 6.7% YoY, raising concerns about whether the 40-50% target is achievable.

A Curated Marketplace – Or a Closed Club?

Zalando is tightening control over its brand partnerships rather than expanding its marketplace.

• In July 2024, Zalando removed numerous brands, citing vague criteria related to brand awareness and assortment quality.
• In December 2024 and May 2025, more brand removals are planned, affecting both new and existing partners.
• Brand approval is increasingly difficult, making it harder for brands to enter Zalando’s marketplace.

This raises concerns about whether Zalando’s marketplace model is truly scaling or if it remains a controlled, closed ecosystem where only selected brands can participate.

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The About You Acquisition: A Marketplace Power Move or a Risky Merger?

In December 2024, Zalando announced its largest acquisition ever—a €1 billion+ takeover of About You, set to finalize in summer 2025.

Zalando claims both platforms will remain independent for at least three years, but:

• 30% of their assortments already overlap.
• Logistics, tech, and finance teams are being merged, signaling deeper integration.
• SCAYLE (About You’s B2B SaaS solution) will be integrated into Zalando’s B2B segment from summer 2025.

Impact on Brands: What Will Change?

1. Retail Business: Budget Allocation & Pricing Control

For brands selling wholesale to both Zalando and About You, key concerns include:

• Will wholesale terms merge, forcing brands to operate under the same conditions on both platforms?
• How will budget negotiations change if both platforms align pricing and assortment expectations?
• Will Zalando use its data advantage to negotiate tougher terms for brands?

2. Marketplace Sellers: Loss of Flexibility & Increased Dependency

For brands using the partner model on both platforms, the changes raise critical questions:

• Will marketplace fees & T&Cs be standardized across both platforms?
• If Zalando harmonizes pricing or assortment, will brands lose control over their multi-platform strategies?
• What if Zalando applies its aggressive brand removal strategy to About You?

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B2C Growth: Zalando’s Platform Expansion

Zalando is expanding in three key areas:

• New Markets: Launching in Portugal, Greece, and Bulgaria, growing to 28 countries.
• New Brand Onboarding: Adding Versace Menswear, Marine Serre, Fjällräven, and On to strengthen its premium & sports assortment.
• Beauty & Lounge Expansion:
  • Beauty now expanded to Spain and Finland, reaching 13 markets.
  • Lounge by Zalando expands to five more countries, reaching 22 markets.

Beyond geographic expansion, Zalando is also investing in:

• More personalized shopping experiences and content-driven fashion storytelling.
• Stronger loyalty programs to increase customer retention.

B2B Growth & Challenges

Zalando continues to expand its B2B segment, with ZEOS (Zalando E-commerce Operating System) positioned as a multi-channel logistics solution. While ZEOS now supports 10 external sales channels, including About You, Otto, ASOS, and Amazon, adoption remains slow.

Despite onboarding 40+ partners, including Pepe Jeans and NEXT, growth has fallen short of expectations. Major brands already have established logistics solutions, while mid-sized brands—its key target—are hesitant due to high costs and dependency risks.

ZFS (Zalando Fulfillment Solutions) remains the primary B2B revenue driver, offering cost-efficient fulfillment for Zalando Marketplace orders, whereas ZEOS struggles with higher pricing and limited scalability.

Financially, B2B revenue grew 11.5% YoY to €953M, but B2B EBIT dropped from €39M to €23M, with margins falling to just 2.4%. With SCAYLE (About You’s SaaS business) set to be integrated in summer 2025, Zalando needs to prove that B2B can become a scalable and profitable growth driver rather than a costly side project.

Outlook – What’s Next?

2025 Growth Expectations

What will our Zalando deep dive for 2025 look like? Zalando projects GMV and revenue growth of 4-9% in 2025, with adjusted EBIT expected to rise to €530M – €590M. Despite macroeconomic challenges, the company remains focused on scaling its platform ecosystem across both B2C and B2B segments.

Finalizing the About You Acquisition

• The full integration of SCAYLE into Zalando’s B2B segment is planned for summer 2025.
• While About You and Zalando will operate separately for now, internal departments like logistics, tech, and finance are already merging, signaling deeper structural integration.
• How Zalando manages the coexistence of both platforms will determine the long-term impact of this acquisition.

B2B Expansion & Challenges

• ZEOS growth remains a key focus, but adoption has been slower than expected. Will 2025 bring more mid-sized brands into the system, or will ZEOS remain a niche logistics solution for a select few?
• B2B margin recovery is essential—Zalando aims for 10-13% profitability, but with margins dropping to 2.4% in 2024, it remains uncertain how quickly this can be achieved.

With marketplace expansion, new logistics solutions, and a major acquisition in progress, 2025 will be a defining year for Zalando’s position as Europe’s leading fashion platform.

Want deeper insights? Tune in to Episode 103 of our Podcast “Let’s Talk Marketplace”, where we break down Zalando’s B2B growth, challenges, and what’s next for its logistics expansion.

 

Der Beitrag Zalando Deep Dive 2024 – Marketplace Development erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

Fashion Bombshell: Why Zalando acquires About You

by Ingrid Lommer

Zalando, Europe’s largest online fashion retailer, has announced its acquisition of competitor About You, marking a major shakeup in the European fashion e-commerce and marketplace industry. The deal, valued at €1.13 billion, includes a purchase price of €6.50 per About You share—a 107% premium on the stock’s three-month average price.

The acquisition comes as Zalando and other European e-commerce fashion players face mounting pressure from rapidly growing Chinese competitor Shein, whose innovative “on-demand” production model and ultra-low pricing has disrupted the market and taken Europe by storm.

A Deal Years in the Making

Hamburg-based About You was launched in 2014 by Tarek Müller, Sebastian Betz, and Hannes Wiese as a subsidiary of the Otto Group. Despite an initial IPO share price of €23, the company has struggled to maintain investor confidence, with shares trading near €4 before the announcement. The economic challenges of 2023 hit Otto Group and About You hard. Once a flagship of Otto’s digital transformation, About You has struggled with exploding costs, shrinking user numbers and a more pressing need for profitability. Now, Otto Group, which held 64.7% of About You through the Michael Otto Foundation, has committed to selling its stake, along with About You’s co-founders and other major shareholders, bringing Zalando’s secured control to 73%.

Zalando plans to maintain About You as an independent brand under a dual-brand strategy. While Zalando appeals to over 50 million customers across 25 countries, About You is supposed to continue catering to a younger, style-driven audience through its trend-setting and influencer-heavy platform.

SCAYLE: A Key Asset in the Deal

A significant component of the takeover is SCAYLE, About You’s B2B e-commerce software platform, which has established itself as a fast-growing and profitable SaaS solution in the fashion and lifestyle segment. SCAYLE provides tailored e-commerce infrastructure for over 200 online shops in Europe and North America. As part of the deal, SCAYLE will be integrated into Zalando’s existing software environment, complementing its ZEOS platform. Together, these systems are supposed to form a unified multichannel ecosystem designed to streamline operations for brands and retailers, offering a seamless platform for logistics, payments, and e-commerce services.

Synergies and Strategic Alignment

Zalando expects long-term annual synergies of approximately €100 million, leveraging About You’s strengths in both the B2C and B2B sectors. The integration of SCAYLE alongside ZEOS represents a pivotal part of this strategy, providing brands and retailers with a unified platform to optimize their multichannel operations.

The Co-CEOs of About You—Müller, Betz, and Wiese—will retain their leadership roles. “This partnership creates something truly unique: two distinct B2C brands tailored to specific customer needs while combining our strengths in B2B to offer comprehensive solutions,” said Tarek Müller.

What the deal will mean for the marketplaces of both Zalando and About You, if selling partners will benefit from it, and how the platforms will change due to the merger, is yet unknown. We have asked both Zalando and About You for comments and will update this article as soon as we learn more.

Market Response

The announcement sent About You’s stock soaring by 64%, nearing the offered price of €6.50 per share. However, Zalando’s shares fell by 7.5%, reflecting investor caution over the significant investment amid a challenging retail landscape.

Navigating a Changing Market

The acquisition underscores Zalando’s determination to strengthen its foothold in the €450 billion European fashion and lifestyle market. While the entire fashion industry has struggled in 2023 due to economic uncertainties and Shein’s meteoric rise, this deal signals Zalando’s commitment to scaling its operations. Especially SCAYLE could be the crown jewel of the deal for Zalando’s future as a e-commerce tech company.

For Otto Group on the other hand, the sale of About You and SCAYLE represents a difficult yet pragmatic decision. By cutting off About You, it rids itself of a struggling sub-company and the huge investments it would need to stay competitive in a difficult market. But with SCAYLE it loses an important and very promising tech component which might have turned out to be vital for Otto’s future success.

As the transaction progresses, expected to close by summer 2025 pending regulatory approval, the European fashion e-commerce sector braces for further disruption. Whether this strategic consolidation will be enough to fend off competition from agile newcomers like Shein remains to be seen, but it marks a bold step forward for Zalando in a turbulent industry landscape.

Der Beitrag Zalando acquires About You erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

Western Brands Unknowingly Flood Shein: A New FrontieR in Unauthorized Sales

by Ingrid Lommer

Western luxury and sports brands are facing an unexpected dilemma as their products appear on Shein, the fast-fashion giant known for low prices and questionable sourcing. The likes of Adidas, Puma, Nike, Ray-Ban, and Calvin Klein are being sold on the Chinese platform—at deep discounts and with shoddy product listings—without the brands’ consent. With the platform expanding its reach across Europe, from Germany to the UK, the question of where these products come from and how they end up on Shein is becoming more pressing.

A Surge of Branded Goods on Shein’s Marketplace

In recent weeks, items from Adidas and Puma have been spotted on Shein’s European sites, selling at prices far below what shoppers would find on official brand stores or authorized retailers. The Adidas Samba sneaker, for instance, is available for as little as €62.29 on Shein Germany, while the same model retails for €120 on Adidas’s own site. And this is just the beginning.

Puma, alarmed by these developments, has hinted at potential legal action, while Adidas has issued a public statement clarifying that it does not permit its products to be sold on Shein. Despite this, Shein’s marketplace continues to offer these brands, and it’s not just in Germany—Shein Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy, and the UK are all showing similar trends.

Digging Deeper: Our Investigation into Shein Germany and Switzerland

At Marketplace Universe, we took a closer look at Shein’s German and Swiss platforms to understand the scale and variety of the branded products being sold. The results were revealing—and troubling. In Germany, the listings are scattered and inconsistent. High-end brands like Swarovski appear, but with poorly rendered product images and incomplete descriptions, making it hard to determine authenticity or product quality. The Adidas Samba, for example, is misnamed as “Adidas Classic Boots,” a title that does nothing to assure buyers of its authenticity. Similarly, Ray-Ban sunglasses are sold by a third-party vendor with minimal transparency about who is behind the listing.

In Switzerland, things get even more interesting. The Adidas section here is larger, featuring items like the Argentina national soccer jersey, though some items bear labels indicating Chinese origins, raising red flags about potential gray market involvement. Nike products, sold under the guise of third-party stores like “Sports Pavilion,” seem to follow a similar pattern, with customer reviews confirming that these items are likely sourced outside official European channels. Yet, none of these products reflect the latest seasonal offerings. Instead, they tend to be basic, evergreen models that never go out of stock, reinforcing the notion that Shein may be scooping up overstock or excess inventory.

Shein’s Expanding Reach Across Europe

Our research into Shein’s platforms in France and the UK revealed a large presence of Western-branded accessories. On Shein UK, we found 27 Michael Kors bags, all heavily discounted, with price reductions of up to 69%. This suggests a significant influx of luxury goods at prices far below their typical retail cost. Meanwhile, on Shein France, the accessory brand Coach was widely available, with several hundred Coach products listed, offering a broad selection of bags, wallets, and other items.

Despite the sizable assortment of luxury accessories, the overall trend on Shein remains the same: poor product descriptions, vague or minimal details, and inconsistent presentation. Whether browsing high-end bags in the UK or Coach accessories in France, the listings often lack the quality you’d expect from these renowned brands, and many products seem to be part of discounted or fragmented collections rather than current-season stock.

Where Is Shein Getting These Products?

The big question remains: how did these branded goods find their way onto Shein in the first place? The brands themselves are certainly not selling directly to the platform, but that leaves several possible avenues for how these products are sourced.

One likely explanation is overstock. Fashion is a highly seasonal business, and out-of-season products often end up being sold off to secondary markets in bulk. The items available on Shein tend to be classic, “never out of stock” pieces—think of the iconic Adidas Samba, not a limited-edition or seasonal design. These overproduced items are often sold at a steep discount to international buyers.

Another possible source is the gray market. When products are sold in large quantities, especially through wholesalers, they sometimes “disappear” into unofficial distribution channels. In some cases, retailers or distributors sell excess inventory to foreign markets, where the products may eventually end up on Shein through resellers.

There’s also the possibility of B-goods or outlet-grade products—those that don’t meet the brand’s standard for full-price sale but are still authentic. These are sometimes made in bulk specifically for outlets or discount retailers, offering an explanation for the lower prices and varying quality found on Shein. Lastly, Shein’s marketplace model, which allows third-party sellers to offer branded goods, may be the key. It’s possible that authorized distributors of Adidas, Puma, and other brands are reselling stock through Shein, or that Shein is sourcing from resellers in markets like Asia or Eastern Europe.

What can Brands do?

The question of how Shein is sourcing these products is likely to have many answers, each one reflecting the complexities of today’s global supply chain. Our research into Shein Germany and Switzerland suggests that Shein’s stock is a mix of overstock, gray market goods, and items likely bought from third-party distributors. The products on Shein are rarely current-season, and they’re often heavily discounted and fragmented, like something you’d find in an outlet store rather than a full retail collection.

What’s particularly striking is how inconsistent the listings are across countries. Shein Switzerland, France and Spain, for example, features a much wider range of fashion, accessories and sportswear than Shein Germany, suggesting that some countries may be easier entry points for unauthorized goods. Meanwhile, Shein Germany is dominated by jewelry and beauty products, with less of a focus on fashion and sportswear.

For brands, the first step in solving this problem is to start buying their products directly from Shein and tracking the packaging, labels, and batch numbers to trace where these goods originated. A systematic sweep of Shein’s various marketplaces in different countries is also essential to get a full picture of how widespread this issue is. Ultimately, brands face a growing challenge: Shein is here to stay, and its marketplace model shows no signs of slowing down. The platform’s sheer scale and ability to sell these products cheaply makes it an attractive option for consumers—but a potential nightmare for brands trying to protect their image and control their distribution. And what is currently happening on Shein is likely to be a foretaste of future developments on Temu. After all, this platform is also transforming into a marketplace – which opens new doors for the gray market.

Der Beitrag Western Brands on Shein erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.

German premium fashion retailer Breuninger looking for a Buyer

The German premium fashion retail chain Breuninger is on sale, according to an article in the German economic newspaper Wirtschaftswoche. The assessment phase for a sale has allegedly been running since June; 31 companies are interested, among them international competitors such as El Corte Inglés or Galeries Lafayette. Even Amazon is on the list of interested parties, Wirtschaftswoche reports.

It is still unclear if the complete Breuninger Group will be sold to one buyer or if parts of the company, such as the offline retail business, the online business which also features a vibrant marketplace or the pure real estates will go to separate buyers.

Company valuation reveales problems underneath

The most shocking part of the story are the reported figures: Experts speculate that in the negotiations the complete Breuninger Group is being valued at round about 2,5 billion Euro, with the real estates taking the biggest part of the pie with a value of 1,8 billion Euro. Considering the existing debts, Breuninger could be sold for around 2 billion Euro. 

So that means that Breuninger’s complete retail business with a turnover of roundabout 1.4 billion Euro in 2022, with an e-commerce percentage of over 50 percent and a well-established marketplace business is only considered with 700 Million Euro – which roughly corresponds to Breuninger’s online GMV. What about the brick-and-mortar business?

What will happen to Breuninger?

Fashion retail chains are struggling all over the industry, especially in Germany. The last 12 months alone have seen the insolvencies of Esprit, Peek & Cloppenburg, Hallhuber Klingel, Galeria and many other fashion players. But Breuninger seemed to manage its digitalization process rather well in comparison to its competitors. The retail chained pushed its e-commerce percentage every year to over 50 per cent in 2022, and the marketplace has become one of the key players in the German premium fashion market, the clear nummer 2 behind Zalando.

So what will happen to these assets? Much will depend on the designated buyer. Will they take over the whole Breuninger group? Then it’s very likely that many brick-and-mortar stores will be closed to push profitability. Or will the group be split up? Then competitors like El Corte Inglès or Galaries Lafayette could push their own online business with the good work the Breuninger e-commerce team has done in the last years.

Der Beitrag Breuninger on Sale erschien zuerst auf Marketplace Universe.