zalando

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
1
Hello all,

How Zalando manages to send and receive parcels from private customers without charging any fees?

When i see that as a private i pay at least 7 chf for a parcel(B post) i wonder how they manage to keep it for free.

Let's say 1 million parcels per yer by7 chf=at least 1 million chf lost by Zalando

Thank you

2
Sheer volume and profit allows them to subsidise this.

In other countries this business model hasn't worked as lots of people order too much (every possible size that might fit them) with the plan of sending most of it back, or worse, buying, wearing for a night out, and then sending back.

3
My last order came in 5 seperate packets, one from serbia and some from Germany. I sent the same number of packets back. You have to wonder but this is their business model.

In Switzerland if you buy a packet of teabags online it'll cost you more than 10CHF for the postage even though there's a 200% mark up on the original price so it's no wonder people use amazon or zalando etc. Generally there the postage (and possible return) is built into the profit margin.

4
I guess they know what they spend on postage a year and build it in to the prices.

5
This goes on in Switzerland as well.

6
Half of Zalando orders are returned!

This is from 2019 and in German but explains some of problems Zalando has.

7
That's insane. I think I return about one in fifteen orders on Zalando and one in a hundred on Amazon - we order a lot from Amazon. Sometimes Amazon don't even want the item back as they can't sell it if the reason for the return was 'damaged in transit'.

8
If you go to a post office you will see a huge volume of Zalando packages. They for sure don't pay retail price.

I love that I can just return and it's picked up from home and often order multiple sizes etc.

I am sure they make a good profit!

9
It's also worth checking out the prices on the Zalando sites of neighbouring countries as often the Swiss site has a huge unjustified mark-up. It pays to shop around (obviously more so if you are near a border or visit one regularly).