Zalando issued an upbeat results report on Thursday, talking of expectations for “accelerating growth” in 2025 after a strong 2024 performance.

And it talked up the key new partnership with the UK’s Next that was announced late last year. This year, Zalando’s ZEOS logistics operation is becoming the “partner of choice” for Next in fulfilling online DTC orders for most of continental Europe. The partnership, will see it introduce new fulfilment features “that will benefit all ZEOS clients in the future. These include advanced fulfilment capabilities — like virtual bonded warehousing — as well as enhanced onboarding and inventory management capabilities. ZEOS is also expanding its services to 10 additional European markets, where Next is already trading”.

Thursday saw the German e-tail giant detailing its expectations for the current trading year and it said its 2025 gross merchandise volume (GMV) and revenue should grow between 4% and 9%, “driven by the successful execution of Zalando’s ecosystem strategy across both growth vectors business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B)”. That excludes an impact from its About You acquisition on either revenue or profits.

Meanwhile adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) should rise to a range between €530 million and €590 million.

2024 strength

That confidence comes after a buoyant 2024 as both GMV and revenue were in the upper half of the firm’s guidance range, with 4.5% and 4.2% growth, respectively. GMV reached €15.3 billion, while revenue was €10.6 billion.

B2C revenue was up to €9.657 billion from €9.301 billion. And B2B revenue was up to €952 million from €854 million.

Its adjusted EBIT jumped to €511 million from €350 million, which actually beat the updated guidance for €440 million-€480 million it had issued earlier.

The adjusted EBIT margin also rose from 3.5% in 2023 to 4.8% in 2024, “supported by strong operational efficiencies and a significantly higher B2C gross margin, which saw a year-on-year increase of more than 2 percentage points to 43.5%”.

Net income rose to €251.1 million from €83 million in FY23.

And it returned to active customer growth in 2024, with the number up 4.5% to an all-time high of 51.8 million. The number of orders rose to 251 million from 245 million and while average orders per active customer dipped slightly to 4.8 from 4.9, the average basket size rose to €60.90 from €59.80.

The company is aiming to “build the leading pan-European fashion and lifestyle e-commerce ecosystem along two growth vectors B2C and B2B” with co-CEO Robert Gentz saying that “our ecosystem strategy is progressing well and is our exciting new North Star”. 

In 2024, the company made “significant strides” in onboarding new, “highly relevant brands and assortments” like Versace menswear, Marine Serre, On running, and Fjällräven, enhancing its Designer and Sports offerings. In February, Zalando also became the exclusive retailer for Diane von Furstenberg in Europe. 

The e-tailer also improved product presentation through “elevated product detail pages, and is taking the product experience even further with tailored and innovative digital experiences such as its digital size advice for customers based on reference items and body measurements”. 

Since the initial launch in 2022, Zalando has also doubled the Adaptive fashion assortment, offering more than 600 styles in the course of 2024 — 170 more than the year before — across several categories, including footwear, sports and kidswear.

It has also expanded its “try before you pay” solution with “success” in Germany leading to expansion to eight more markets.

And talking of expanding its initiatives to further markets, its Beauty proposition is to be expanded to Spain and Finland, so will be serving customers in 13 European markets. Meanwhile discount shopping club Lounge by Zalando is being expanded to five more countries in 2025, to be available in 22 markets.

Other developments this year include rolling out the company’s updated loyalty programme Zalando Plus further. The programme has already been successfully launched in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Austria, and will be rolled out to most markets in 2025. 

Zalando will also expand its platform into new markets, launching in Portugal, Greece and Bulgaria.

The company is focusing on tech too and is piloting an outfit-builder experience called Stylelt, which allows users to style a complete outfit on the avatar of their choice, “letting them experiment with different looks and share their inspirations with friends, family, and followers”. 

Meanwhile, in B2B, it’s opening up its logistics infrastructure, software, and service capabilities “to be a key enabler for brands’ and retailers’ e-commerce transactions with its ZEOS operation system, regardless of whether they take place on or off its platform”.

We’ve already mentioned the big Next deal, but as well as that, ZEOS now serves 12 markets following the launch in Switzerland, Poland and Spain. 

Beyond that, merchants can now sell on 10 different channels, including brands’ own e-com destinations, as well as via nine marketplaces that collectively cover 85% of the total marketplace volume in Europe.