As the curtains closed on 2024, Zalando, the renowned European e-commerce powerhouse, unveiled a remarkable financial performance, with a net profit of €251.1 million, soaring from €83 million in the previous year. This impressive growth is a testament to the company’s successful execution of its strategy to build the leading pan-European e-commerce ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle, driven by two key vectors of growth: B2C and B2B. According to the company’s report, this achievement is a direct result of its unwavering commitment to providing an exceptional customer experience, underscored by its unrelenting pursuit of innovation and expansion.
The company’s Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) experienced a moderate increase of 4.5%, reaching €15.3 billion, while revenues grew by 4.2% to €10.6 billion. Moreover, the group’s adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) witnessed a significant surge, rising to €511 million, surpassing the updated forecasts of €440-480 million. The adjusted EBIT margin also expanded from 3.5% in 2023 to 4.8% in 2024, bolstered by robust operational efficiencies and a substantial increase in the B2C gross margin, which rose by over 2 percentage points to 43.5%. As the company looks to the future, it expects GMV and revenues to grow between 4% and 9% in 2025, with adjusted EBIT projected to reach between €530 million and €590 million.
In 2024, Zalando’s customer base reached a historic high of 51.8 million active users, a 4.5% increase from the previous year, with customers placing a total of 251 million orders. Robert Gentz, Co-CEO of Zalando, emphasized, “Our ecosystem strategy is progressing well and is our new and exciting guiding star. It has already contributed to a solid financial performance in 2024, and now we are accelerating our execution efforts and investing to capture future growth.” Gentz highlighted the company’s focus on implementing its updated loyalty program, expanding its lifestyle offerings, and inspiring customers through engaging content integrations.
Expansion of Zalando Plus, a Key Initiative in 2025
The company’s first strategic pillar in the B2C business is to differentiate itself through quality, offering the best possible shopping experience in fashion and lifestyle. A key initiative in 2025 is the further deployment of its updated loyalty program, Zalando Plus, which has already been successfully launched in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Austria. The program is set to be expanded to most markets in 2025, with Zalando also launching its platform in new markets, including Portugal, Greece, and Bulgaria.
In 2024, the company made significant strides in incorporating new brands and relevant assortments, such as Versace men’s clothing, Marine Serre, On, and Fjällräven, enhancing its design and sports offerings. In February, Zalando became the exclusive retailer of the iconic Diane von Furstenberg brand in Europe. Additionally, the company improved product presentation through elevated product detail pages and is taking the product experience further with personalized and innovative digital experiences, such as its digital size advice for customers based on reference items and body measurements. Since its initial launch in 2022, Zalando has also doubled its adaptive fashion assortment, offering customers over 600 adaptable styles across various categories, including footwear, sports, and children’s clothing.
The company continues to invest in providing the best local convenience in each market. Zalando’s patented “try before you pay” solution, which allows customers to pay with various methods at a later time, was a success in Germany and has been successfully expanded to 8 additional markets.
B2B Sector
In the B2B sector, where Zalando is opening up its logistics infrastructure, software, and service capabilities with its ZEOS operating system, the company is building on the solid foundation established in 2024. ZEOS now serves 12 markets, following its launch in Switzerland, Poland, and Spain. Merchants can sell on 10 different channels, including their own e-commerce destinations, as well as through 9 markets that collectively cover 85% of the total market volume in Europe. Zalando also gave merchants more control over their fulfillment business by launching and expanding logistics functionalities in ZEOS ONE, the central control panel.
In 2025, ZEOS will become the chosen partner for UK-based fashion, home, and beauty retailer NEXT, to fulfill online direct-to-consumer orders for most of continental Europe. Through this partnership, ZEOS will introduce new fulfillment features that will benefit all ZEOS customers in the future, including advanced fulfillment capabilities, such as virtual customs storage, as well as enhanced onboarding and inventory management capabilities. ZEOS is also expanding its services to 10 additional European markets where NEXT already operates.
Furthermore, in 2024, Zalando made significant progress toward its short-term goals for 2025, reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its operations by 82% and decreasing the emission intensity of its private-label products by 48% since 2018. The company’s long-term goal is to achieve net-zero emissions in its own operations and private labels by 2040 and across its entire platform by 2050.
Zalando also announced a plan to partner with ABOUT YOU in December. In B2C, the acquisition will enable Zalando to execute a dual-brand strategy, providing two distinct and separate experiences to better serve customers and partners. In B2B, ABOUT YOU’s SCAYLE unit will perfectly complement Zalando’s ZEOS platform software offering. Following the voluntary public takeover offer and related agreements, Zalando has secured over 90% of ABOUT YOU’s share capital without own shares, underscoring strong consent to the agreement. The closure is expected this summer, with full consolidation to follow.
