In this guest post from ChannelUnity, they reveal the strong sales growth their clients are seeing on the Zalando marketplace:
Never miss out on the opportunity to sell on new marketplace territories with ChannelUnity sales management solution
ChannelUnity customers in the fashion sector are seeing strong sales growth through the Zalando marketplace, facilitated by ChannelUnity’s integration with the platform.
Zalando was established in 2008 and is now active in 23 European markets. Sellers benefit from sales growth, local brand recognition, and can take advantage of marketing support from Zalando including an Elite Vendor Management programme. Given the results that can be achieved, if you want to capitalise on the European fashion market, the question is “why aren’t you on Zalando?”
Zalando is an ‘approved-seller only’ marketplace – Zalando verify the stability and reputation of potential sellers, but also look for sellers to be able to meet the technical integration requirements involved in communicating with their APIs.
ChannelUnity offers out-of-the-box integration with Zalando for popular ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce and WooCommerce, as well as other platforms.
Through ChannelUnity, sellers can get their products onto the Zalando platform, use Zalando’s own fulfilment service, use their fulfilment arrangements, or alternatively use Amazon’s Multichannel Fulfilment service.
ChannelUnity also provides a comprehensive onboarding service to help sellers onto the platform. The company brings a level of experience and attention to detail which others cannot match. ChannelUnity is one of a select few companies that Zalando actively recommends to their selling partners.
For aspiring Zalando partners, whether already accepted by Zalando or not, ChannelUnity offers a free-of-charge initial consultation, system demonstration and detailed assessment of the available product data to check suitability against Zalando’s requirements.
The Zalando onboarding process can take 8-12 weeks. During the implementation, challenges can include data formatting, correct mapping of product sizes to Zalando standards, image requirements and certain key Zalando-specific attributes. Any missing data required by Zalando can be derived using rules in the ChannelUnity system or added in from external sources using ChannelUnity’s data enrichment tools.
Throughout the process, ChannelUnity supports customers in all their dealings with Zalando and includes a thorough pre-live testing phase to make sure everything is working correctly.
ChannelUnity has built up extensive experience with Zalando by working with a wide range of large and small fashion brands, and is ideally placed to help, with its combination of pre-built integrations, functionality and experience.
Adding Zalando will open up European markets and in ChannelUnity sellers will also find further global opportunities on marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Wayfair and Etsy.
As well as the ecommerce platforms mentioned above, ChannelUnity also provides direct integration into several popular ERP systems as well as a custom API allowing the integration of any other system.
To check eligibility for Zalando, sellers must match the following criteria when dispatching from your own warehouse:
- You have a business in Germany with a German legal form and a German tax ID
- You present yourself as the seller to end customers
- You offer customer service in German
- You dispatch from a German warehouse
If looking to use Zalando Fulfilment Services, you’ll need to:
- Send request for new countries to your Integrator, provided that these have been approved by Zalando and are in your contract.
- Make sure you are compliant of the Partner Program VAT Policy – you are responsible for your local VAT registration in the countries where you go live on a Zalando marketplace.
- Inform Zalando if you want to receive Zalando settlement in local currency (optional for non € countries)
- Know Your Customer (KYC) documents must be submitted to Zalando
“As one of our more recent integrations, Zalando provides our customers with a quality and sustainable marketplace. We have a close relationship with the Zalando team, who recommend our system to new interested sellers because of our reputation and reliability in getting new selling partners through the process. Our customers receive a more comprehensive and supported experience, with strong communication lines in place between ourselves and Zalando that we only see getting stronger.”
– Matt Gardiner, CEO ChannelUnity
To learn more, enquire with ChannelUnity here.
