Major expansion for online footwear retailer
29/03/2012
In the course of this year, the company plans to start shipping shoes to double the number of European countries it serves at the moment, increasing from seven to 14. The company started in 2008. It already serves customers in Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands. It will add the Scandinavian countries in May and intends to start shipping to Poland, Spain and Belgium soon after.
On announcing the expansion, the Financial Times pointed out that the company owes much of the inspiration behind what it does to US specialist footwear retailer Zappos and that financial backing from “serial internet investors Marc, Oliver and Alexander Samwer” has raised speculation that it may soon be up for sale. The reason for this, the newspaper said, is that the Samwer brothers have a certain notoriety in the internet business world because they have succeeded several times in making European versions of internet businesses, including auction site eBay and special deals information site Groupon, and selling them to the owners of the original US businesses for large amounts of money.
However, the senior management team at Zalando has insisted there is no intention to sell the company at the moment. Co-chief executive Robert Gentz told the newspaper: “We’re in it for the long haul. If we were looking for a quick sale, we wouldn’t be investing EUR 100 million in a new distribution centre.” The new facility will open in eastern Germany next year.
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