Zalando expands sustainable assortment, new brands being added

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jul 18, 2019

E-tail giant Zalando announced on Thursday that it’s expanded its sustainable assortment in response to its customers being “increasingly concerned about the future of our planet and want[ing] to make more sustainable fashion choices.”

New brands including Ecoalf, Mud Jeans, Swe-s, Girlfriend Collective, and Stripe + Stare will launch on the webstore in the coming weeks.

The company said it’s been seeing a higher number of searches for words such as “organic” and “fairtrade” but that customers had been challenged in tracking down what they want as “it can be difficult to know what sustainability actually means, and how to find products according to their social and environmental values. We want to play a role in changing that.”

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The firm’s sustainable fashion assortment currently comprises more than 15,000 items from over 240 brands with existing eco-focused labels including premium names such as Mother of Pearl and Filippa K, footwear from Veja, outdoor brands like Patagonia, and denim by Nudie Jeans.

The new brands being added are part of a drive to diversify the assortment and will include daywear, denim, activewear, and hosiery.

Zalando is directing customers to all of the items under its eco banner with a sustainability flag. 

“Our current fashion assortment with a sustainability benefit is already one of the largest available in Europe, but we’re just getting started,” said womenswear VP Sara Diez. “Our ambition is to provide customers with a bigger assortment to choose from, clearer information to choose with, and all the inspiration they need to make more sustainable choices. 

“On-boarding these new brands is an important step on our journey, and we’ll focus on adding more sustainable choices to our assortment in the upcoming months.”

She also said the company, which has more than 27 million customers in 17 countries, is conscious of its "ability to influence the demand for and the supply of sustainable fashion. By using our scale and partnering up with key players in the industry, we can increase awareness of and engagement in sustainable fashion.”