Zalando reassesses brand portfolio to help drive profitable growth

German online retailer Zalando is reassessing its brand portfolio as it looks to focus on profitable growth and simplifying the organisation to become "more innovative and faster".

The company will continue to "invest 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.

A spokesperson for Zalando, told TheIndustry.fashion: "2022 showed that Zalando is well on its way to becoming the must-go-to destination for all fashion and lifestyle needs. We were able to increase the number of customers and deepen customer loyalty.

"This year, the focus is on profitable growth and simplifying the organisation to become more innovative and faster. We are currently reassessing the brand portfolio we have on Zalando. As this is an ongoing process, we are currently unable to provide any information on how many brands this will affect."

Earlier this month, Zalando reported a 0.1% drop in revenue to £9.18 billion (€‎10.34 billion) for the year ending 31 December 2022. Its net income also fell from £206.1 million (€‎234.5 million) in 2021 to £14.7 million (€‎16.8 million) in 2022.

However, the company's active customers grew 6% to over 51 million and its loyalty program, Plus, more than doubled its membership to over two million against 2021.

Speaking about its results at an annual press conference, Co-CEO Robert Gentz said: "Unrivalled choice is a great thing to offer - but relevancy and curation at scale is what we are really after."

The move comes after Zalando's recent decision to “remove several hundred overhead roles” across many of its teams, citing that the pandemic tailwinds have faded since 2022 and “the macroeconomic environment has become more challenging”.

At the time, the company said that Zalando is not where it needs to be as over the last few years some parts of the business have “expanded too much”, adding a degree of complexity to the organisation that has impacted its ability to "act fast".