Zalando opened its platform to external sellers in 2011. Since then, partners have used Zalando zDirect to manage and sell their products through the Zalando Fashion Store.
This portal gives you everything you need to run your marketplace operations: stock, performance data, order handling and more.
Already selling on Zalando? Then zDirect is your daily cockpit. You’ll instantly see how your products perform, how much stock you have left, and where optimisation pays off. Want a broader view of selling on Zalando? Their general selling guidelines are worth reviewing too.
What you can do with Zalando zDirect
zDirect lets you sell products directly through the Zalando Fashion Store. As an external partner, you can:
- create new product listings
- manage stock
- process orders
- analyse sales data and KPIs
- manage marketing campaigns and ads
- add and manage user accounts
- track shipments to and from Zalando warehouses
In short: everything you need to operate professionally on Zalando is consolidated in one dashboard.
The two main modules of zDirect
The partner portal is divided into two main modules:
- The sales module
- The marketing module (conversion funnel & insights)
Below, you’ll find the key features of each — following the same flow as the original article.
1. De verkoopmodule van zDirect
The sales module shows you how your brand or assortment performs: revenue, visibility, stock and margins. It helps you make decisions that genuinely improve results.
Within the Sales tab, the core feature is Article performance, which includes four subtabs:
- Growth: See which products are performing well, where margin potential lies, and where scale-up opportunities exist.
- Stock: Check stock levels and see how often your product pages are viewed. This helps you align supply with actual demand.
- Returns: View return rates and benchmark your articles against similar products on Zalando. This helps reduce costs and understand customer behaviour.
- Not sold: Find products that are live but haven’t sold within a chosen period. You’ll also see how many users viewed the product without buying ideal for spotting conversion barriers.
2. The marketing module of zDirect
This module reveals how your audience behaves. You see how shoppers discover your products, where they drop off and how to optimise your marketing.
The marketing module includes two parts:
Conversion funnel
The funnel breaks down the customer journey into three steps:
- Product page views
- Add-to-cart events
- Purchases
You can see exactly where users drop off and pinpoint why. Fixing these bottlenecks helps improve your overall conversion rate.
Insights
Use Insights to analyse your assortment, target audiences and market performance. You can view:
- conversion rates per country
- product views per country
- customer buying behaviour
- fashion preferences by country and gender
All of this helps you make smarter assortment and marketing decisions.
Getting started with zDirect (onboarding)
If you want to sell through Zalando, you’ll go through four onboarding steps:
- Brand readiness
Zalando checks whether your brand meets all technical and contractual requirements. - Account setup
After approval, you provide your business, market and integration details. - Article onboarding
You upload your first set of products and fix any errors. - Test orders
You send a test order to Zalando exactly as you would to a customer. Once the quality team approves it, you’re ready to go live.
Need help selling on Zalando?
Want to ramp up your Zalando performance? Or need support with Zalando Marketing Services? Our marketplace specialists help brands grow through smart setup, optimisation and scalable marketplace strategies.
Get in touch with a specialist to see what’s possible for your brand.
