Zalando discontinues private label business
Zalando, the online platform for fashion and lifestyle, has announced it will discontinue its private label business zLabels as it aims to unite all of its private labels and partner brand assortments under one roof.
ZLabels will be discontinued as of April 1, 2019 and starting spring/summer 2020, Zalando said its private labels will focus on customers’ “everyday essentials in its apparel offering and continue with a focused footwear and accessories assortment”.
It added that the 11 private label brands will be kept for the time being and reviewed in line with this new assortment strategy at a later point.
Zalando co-CEO David Schneider said: “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 10 years, our business has become more attractive to both customers and brands. Since we are committed to our platform strategy, and as we continuously onboard new brands and verticals, we decided to refine our assortment including our own labels.
“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.
By rebuilding the private label business within Zalando SE, a significant number of the 550 zLabels employees will move into the Zalando Fashion Store or will be offered comparable positions within Zalando.
The company said a “significant number” of comparable positions will be offered to the 550 zLabels employees within Zalando.
Schneider added: “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.”
