Online fashion powerhouse Zalando announced on December 2 that it had attracted more than 1 million new customers during Cyber Week 2020, growing GMV by about 35% compared with the same period in 2019.
Our data shows that aggregate GMV [gross merchandise value] marketplace growth peaked at 62.5% in May 2020, which accounts for both the increased success of major marketplaces such as Zalando as well as the rise of homegrown sites like OnBuy in the UK. Have some categories benefited more from the pandemic than others?
Online fashion seller Zalando announced in May that partner brick-and-mortar fashion retailers will play a bigger role in fulfilling its online orders. Zalando is acting on estimates that a potential €1.12 billion ($1.32 billion) in sales are lost each year if stock isn’t present in warehouses—the place online orders are normally filled and shipped.
Zalando has been trialing very large labels on clothing, and insisting those must remain attached if buyers want to return the goods. That makes it much harder for consumers to wear and then return an item. Fashion giant Asos has taken a further step, threatening to block the most egregious “serial returners” from using its site at all. Marketplaces Are a Major Growth Driver.
With so many well-known online fashion and apparel brands out of the UK and Western Europe like Asos, Zalando and Nelly.com, Amazon has not made as much progress in this category in the UK as it has in the US. Perhaps Prime Day will serve as a springboard to further promote its apparel offerings to this audience.