Zalando, a European e-commerce giant based in Berlin (Germany), is winding up its apparel sourcing from India. As of now, the firm’s private label zLabels is just sourcing men’s shirts from a Bengaluru-based vendor and knitted garments from a Tirupur-based exporter. From now onwards, the brand will source shoes from India and basic garments from Bangladesh.
In apparels, the brand used to source mainly high fashion garments (knitted as well as woven) from 8 to 10 exporters of India. Its sourcing amounted to about 20 million euros per year as every month it used to place an order of 300-400 SKUs (stock keeping units) and every SKU had a minimum order of 1,000 pieces. In many cases, it went up even higher.
zLabels started in 2010 with around 11 brands in apparel and footwear category to cater to its niche customers. “These 11 private label brands – Anna Field, Even & Odd, Friboo, Fullstop, Kiomi, Mint & Berry, Pier One, Twintip, Your Turn, Zalando Essentials and Zign – will be kept for the time being and reviewed in line with this new assortment strategy at a later point.
