Zalando wants to have clothes mended

The start-up, which is now listed on the stock exchange, is thus focusing on the major trend towards sustainability.

The trend towards sustainable fashion has been making the tills of large corporations ring for some time now. Now Zalando wants to earn even more from it than before and is testing a new project with a high public profile. In future, the DAX-listed company wants to offer to mend or repair various items of clothing to make them more durable. The start-up wants to prevent customers from wearing their clothes for just one season and throwing them away as soon as they have minor defects. The German company is working with the British start-up Save Your Wardrobe to offer this service.

The new service is part of a sustainability offensive by the German start-up, which is hoping to make a tidy profit from it. It has set itself the goal of generating around a fifth of its gross merchandise volume with sustainable products by 2023. According to the company, this figure was already 16% in 2020, of which 10% would have carried a corresponding label. The second-hand range is also set to grow further. According to Zalando, 200,000 items were already added in this area last year, and this figure is set to rise even further in the future. In addition, around 50 million euros will be invested in sustainable projects. With all these measures, Zalando aims to continue the rapid growth of recent months. In the 2020 financial year, the start-up increased its gross merchandise volume by 30.4 percent to 10.7 billion euros. EBIT amounted to 420.8 million euros, and Zalando is forecasting EBIT of up to 425 million euros for the financial year.