Zalando enhances customer experience with new ChatGPT assistant

Online fashion retailer Zalando is launching a tool powered by ChatGPT, introducing a new way to discover its product assortment and provide customers with more "intuitive fashion inspiration".

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI and released in November 2022. The technology will allow Zalando's customers to navigate through its retail offering using their own words or fashion terms. The tool will then suggest relevant products, enabling customers to have ongoing conversations to refine their results.

According to the retailer, if a customer asks “What should I wear for a wedding in Santorini in July?”, the fashion assistant will understand that this is a formal event, what the weather is in Santorini in July, and therefore, provide recommendations of products based on that input.

Zalando believes this could be combined in the future with customer preferences, such as brands they follow and products available in their sizes, to deliver a more personalised selection of products.

Launching this spring, the platform will first be available to consumers in the UK, Germany, Ireland and Austria.

Tian Su, VP Personalisation and Recommendation at Zalando, said: “At Zalando, our customers have always been at the centre of everything we do. As a leader in fashion e-commerce in Europe for 15 years, we have consistently embraced new technologies to enhance our customers' shopping experience.

"We are excited to be experimenting with ChatGPT to help our valued customers discover even more fashion they will love. This is just the beginning; we are committed to understanding our customers' needs and preferences even better, and we are eager to explore the potential that ChatGPT can bring to their shopping journey."

The news follows Zalando's decision to reaccess its brand portfolio as it looks to focus on profitable growth and simplifying the organisation to become "more innovative and faster".

The company is investing in strategic areas to "entice customers and help partners grow their business through the platform and direct sales outside the platform". It is also planning to improve the curation and local relevance of its assortment.