Grow within Europe’s leading fashion marketplace

Sell on Zalando

Zalando is Europe’s most influential fashion marketplace. Through the Partner Program, brands gain direct access to millions of customers across more than 25 countries. But real success on Zalando requires far more than a product feed. The platform operates with strict data standards, complex categorisation and an ecosystem where performance and brand identity need to work together.

At Follo, we build marketplace strategies tailored to the rhythm, rules and expectations of Zalando. We optimise product data, create campaigns that convert and steer daily performance through FolloEngine, all with one goal: sustainable growth.

Get in touch Fashion Marketplaces

Selling on Zalando: opportunities and challenges

Zalando offers huge reach, premium brand exposure and full control over pricing, stock and commercial strategy. But it also comes with challenges: strict data requirements, high return rates, seasonal catalogue changes, categorisation rules and demanding customers.

We guide brands through this ecosystem with a performance-first and brand-focused approach

Strategy: three routes to growth on Zalando

Your Zalando strategy depends on your brand’s maturity, goals and market position. We work with three strategic approaches:

Brand awareness

Ideal for new market entry or category expansion. Focus on reach, visibility and storytelling.

Brand protection

For brands with established presence in their home market who want to manage distribution, pricing and retailer overlap.

Profitable revenue

For brands with existing awareness aiming to scale efficiently through assortment optimisation and performance-driven campaigns.

Each strategy demands a different assortment structure, pricing model and advertising approach. We help define the best strategic route for each country and market you enter.

Integration: the foundation of performance

Seamless integration is essential for success on Zalando. The platform requires accurate, complete and consistent product data.

The best-performing integrators for Zalando are: ChannelAdvisor, ChannelEngine and Tradebyte.

We ensure product data is correct from the start, validating required attributes, fixing errors, structuring variants and managing season retagging. This speeds up onboarding, improves quality scores and increases your visibility.

FolloEngine

Automated feed optimization

Your product feed determines your visibility on Zalando. With FolloEngine, we connect your product data to real-time fashion trends, search behaviour, sales signals and seasonal patterns. We optimise at scale and in real time, with a focus on:

Titles and descriptions engineered for conversion and algorithm performance
Smart tagging and categorisation aligned with Zalando’s standards
Image selection and variant structures that maximise product experience
Dynamic optimisation based on stock levels, return behaviour or click patterns

By combining Zalando data with insights from Google and social search, we ensure your products reach the right audience at exactly the right moment.

More about FolloEngine

Zalando offers two fulfilment models

Operations & logistics: choosing between Partner Fulfilment and ZFS

1. Partner Fulfilment (PF)

You ship orders from your own warehouse, manage stock, handle returns and customer service. This offers full control but requires strong operational processes.

2. Zalando Fulfillment Solutions (ZFS)

Zalando stores, packs, ships and handles returns from their own logistic network.
Benefits include:

Faster delivery (same-day or next-day)
Lower shipping costs
Ability to offer a broader assortment
Easy international expansion
One box for customers (Zalando + partners)
Local customer service by Zalando

ZFS is ideal for brands that want to scale across Europe without building logistics infrastructure themselves.
We support you through the full registration process and help define the best fulfilment setup for your goals.

Content: structure, clarity and scalability

Fashion is dynamic, with seasonal changes, high return rates and fast-moving trends. Zalando therefore expects product content that is:

Complete and accurate
Variant-correct and size-consistent
Visually uniform
Seasonally updated
Clear in sizing (size charts)

Our team creates fashion content that meets Zalando’s strict guidelines while strengthening your brand identity.

ZMS: Zalando Marketing Services, visibility where it matters

ZMS gives fashion brands powerful ways to increase visibility both on and beyond Zalando. The platform blends insights from millions of customer interactions with creative concepts tailored to your brand and audience.

ZMS offers access to deep customer and market insights, helping you make stronger strategic decisions. Using this data, Zalando creates campaigns that align seamlessly with your brand identity — from storytelling and branded visuals to performance-driven placements.

The platform also offers a broad media ecosystem. You can appear through display formats, category and homepage placements, social extensions and influencer collaborations. Everything is supported by dashboards that reveal sales trends, customer behaviour and SKU-level performance.

The result is visibility that fits your brand, resonates in the fashion context and directly contributes to both revenue and long-term brand building. We create the ideal mix for your brand, from Sponsored Products to full-funnel ZMS campaigns.

Zalando advertising: performance that scales

With Zalando Marketing Services (ZMS), you can run paid advertising directly within the platform. Think of Sponsored Products, display ads, homepage banners and seasonal campaigns.

Follo helps you deploy these campaigns intelligently. By targeting fashion categories, customer types or funnel stages, we ensure maximum visibility and return on investment. We tailor creatives to device, shopping moment and user behaviour — optimising towards ROAS, CPA or brand objectives.

Fashion first: balancing brand and performance

Zalando is not a typical marketplace — it is a fashion-driven community. Customers are visually oriented, loyal to brands and highly sensitive to style, storytelling and experience.

That’s why we combine performance marketing with brand building. We make sure your brand narrative stays intact on Zalando, from A+ visuals to storytelling and product curation. It’s all about establishing fashion authority and driving commercial impact.

One ecosystem, not a silo

Zalando is one of the marketplaces you operate on — not the only one. We ensure your Zalando strategy aligns with your broader ecommerce approach.

With FolloEngine, we integrate Zalando data into dashboards that also show performance on Bol, Amazon and your own webshop. This allows us to manage pricing, stock allocation and customer value across all channels. The result: no channel conflict, but synergy.

Growing on Zalando

Our structured 5-step approach

1. Market analysis per country

We analyse fashion trends, competitors, categories and positioning on Zalando.

2. Feed creation and optimisation

We build product feeds that comply with Zalando's guidelines and convert within your target audience.

3. Marketplace activation and advertising

We activate your offer through Sponsored Products and ZMS campaigns, tailored to the season, objective, and target group.

4. Monitoring and sturing via FolloEngine

We combine search and shopping data with platform data and optimize daily for results.

5. Reporting and strategic advice

We use dashboards and analyses to advise on further development, international expansion, and profitable product range development.

Why sell on Zalando with Follo?

Follo has proven experience in fashion ecommerce and marketplaces. We combine creativity with data, and strategy with execution. We help brands claim, grow and strengthen their position on Zalando.

With FolloEngine, we provide real-time optimisation, scalable feed enrichment and campaigns that convert. You’re not working with an intermediary — you’re working with a performance partner that understands your brand and accelerates your growth. Whether you’re entering one market or scaling across Europe, we help you build a strong position on Zalando with a balance of performance, margin and brand experience.