Article onboarding and setting prices

Onboarding is the process of adding your articles to our platform so customers can buy them. You can onboard as many articles as you wish with no limits, provided you have the legal right to sell them and they meet our ethical standards. You’re in control—you can add, modify, or remove articles whenever you need, as long as they adhere to our Ethical standards.

• Full control: You decide your own prices and discount levels.

• Brand identity: Use your own models and images to showcase your unique style.

• Flexibility: Scale your assortment by adding overlapping or incremental articles.

• Year-round sales: Tag articles as year-round basics to meet consistent customer demand.

As a partner, you remain the owner of the article until it’s handed over to the customer. If a customer returns an article, ownership returns to you.

You provide the associated content for selected articles, using your own models to showcase your brand identity whilst aligning with the Zalando image requirements. You will also provide the article description, including colour, materials, and sizing information. Please find more information about which article attributes are mandatory here.

Setting prices is your responsibility. Zalando cannot provide guidance or hints on pricing or discounts due to antitrust laws. You’re free to determine the prices you consider feasible.

You can set or adjust prices through three methods:

1. Integrators: Use your chosen provider (e.g. Tradebyte). Remember to upload prices in the local currency for each country.

2. zDirect API: Integrate directly with the Zalando Price API.

3. zDirect user interface: Manage prices directly in zDirect if you use a direct integration.

• Via integrator: It typically takes a few hours for updates to show on Zalando, depending on your integrator's export frequency.

• Via zDirect API and UI: Updates usually show within minutes. During high-demand periods like Cyber Week, this can take up to four hours.

To keep customer trust, we use a Fair Pricing Framework.

• Compliance: Discounted prices must refer to a compliant reference price.

• Fairness: We may penalise prices set higher than the reference price to avoid misleading customers.

• Validation: We validate all updates and may block a price to prevent mistakes¹.

Ready to see your articles live?

• Visit the Articles section in zDirect