Zalando wants to have clothes mended

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

The trend towards sustainable fashion has been making big companies' coffers ring for quite some time. Now Zalando wants to earn even more from it than before and is rehearsing a new project with a high public profile. In the future, the DAX-listed company wants to offer to mend or repair various items of clothing to make them more durable. In this way, the start-up wants to prevent customers from wearing their clothes for only one season and throwing them away as soon as they have small defects. In order to be able to offer the service, the German company is working together with the British start-up Save Your Wardrobe.

The new service is part of a sustainability drive by the German start-up, which hopes to make a tidy profit from it. Accordingly, it has set itself the goal of generating around one-fifth of its gross merchandise volume with products that are sustainable by 2023. In 2020, according to the company, this figure was already 16 percent, of which ten percent would have carried a corresponding label. The secondhand range is also set to grow further. Last year, according to Zalando, 200,000 items were already added in this area, and in the future it should be even more. In addition, there are investments of around 50 million euros in sustainable projects. With all these measures, Zalando wants to continue the rapid growth of recent months. In the 2020 financial year, the start-up was able to increase its gross merchandise volume by 30.4 percent to 10.7 billion euros. EBIT was €420.8 million, and Zalando is forecasting EBIT of up to €425 million for the financial year.