What else has changed?
In addition to the fact that sales via Zalando have become more expensive, Stephan Holbach also criticizes the lack of transparency: “The fee structure has become very confusing. There are different sales commissions per price range and per payout frequency. Fees are charged back and forth with a time delay, making it difficult to take a closer look.” He therefore only bases his orders on sales in the stationary sector and not on marketplaces. The effects of incentives were not felt by Holbach: “The return processing was offered via Zalando instead of via the retailer, but the fees for this are far too high.” However, one thing has developed positively at Zalando: “The speed of payment has been improved . In some cases, not a day passes between the creation of the statement and the receipt of the money. The other platforms can follow an example.”
Ulrich Volk also states: “Unfortunately, in my opinion, things have not improved much, but rather worsened. Zalando has introduced that items or brands that Zalando no longer sees as attractive will no longer be listed. This means that around 25% of our product range is no longer attractive for Zalando.” Marcus Höhne says that there have been no developments that would significantly boost sales via Zalando: “There are only a few things in terms of evaluations internally at Zalando, which provide additional information. We cannot measure the extent to which investments have had a direct impact on our sales. We don’t have measurably less sales, but we assume that this is due to less competition on the platform.” He sees the future in working with Zalando in the partner program: “The partner program is combined with Connected Retail to form Zalando Partner the commission rates are the same and the service level agreements will also be enforced at the same level from the end of January. But it enables sales abroad, exporting documents to third-party systems and automatic item creation.”
Zalando also refers to schuhkurier’s query on the topic to Zalando partners: “We want to give our partners the tools they need to assert themselves in the e-commerce competition. That’s why we introduced Zalando partners in September. All of Zalando’s partner offerings are bundled under this name in order to create a clear and consistent experience for partners and promote their success on the platform.” The spokesperson also explains to schuhkurier how the company wants to support the connected retailers: “Beyond that We enable our partners to better manage their product ranges and optimize their fulfillment skills. The latest enhancements to our tooling offering for partners include improved item onboarding, optimized returns processes and the introduction of improved and more comprehensive reporting functions. With these investments we want to further strengthen our partners and create long-term benefits for everyone.”
