Set up your own fulfilment solution

We know using your own logistics network, or your own fulfilment, can give you flexibility. This article explains the requirements you must meet and the documents you need to submit to begin fulfilling Zalando orders yourself.

This guide is for partners who choose to use their own fulfilment network instead of Zalando Fulfilment Solutions (ZFS).

Before you begin, ensure you meet these requirements:

• Sign carrier contracts that comply with Zalando’s approved last-mile carrier requirements.

• Meet Zalando’s delivery promise to customers: Review the CXM targets for your countries and ensure your combined warehouse processing time and carrier delivery lead time meet our CXM requirements.

• Prepare your warehouse to process and ship Zalando orders. For full details, see Section 7 of the Platform Rules, which includes:

  • Only fulfil orders with an ‘approved’ status.

  • Fulfil or cancel orders within 72 hours (three business days) of receiving ‘approved’ status.

  • Ensure articles for EU customers are fulfilled from an EU warehouse (see 7.2.2).

  • Comply with all packaging requirements (see 7.2.3).

  • Submit both delivery and return tracking numbers (see 7.2.4).

Please inform us if your deliveries will include using alternative delivery locations, such as Packstations or pick-up points. Note that for certain markets, pick-up point delivery is mandatory.

You'll need to prepare the following documents to meet Zalando standards. We recommend you use our handy templates to adapt them easily.

1. Delivery note: It confirms the articles delivered to the customer and includes details like order number and Customer Care contact information. We recommend you separate it from the return note.

2. Return note: This is the document the customer sends back to you with the returned article. Use it to register returns and evaluate the return reason to improve your customer experience.

3. Return label: All packages must contain a pre-paid and pre-printed return label. We recommend providing customers with a self-adhesive return label for easy use.

4. Invoice: Make sure you comply with all country-specific requirements for invoicing and VAT information in the markets you sell in. You can provide the invoices in paper or electronic format. Please read our Partner Invoister service article for more information.

Provide samples of your completed delivery documents, including the delivery note, return note, return label and invoice to your Onboarding manager for review.

After the review of the delivery documents, we'll need to place a test order for each country you're onboarding to. This is a crucial step to verify your full delivery setup.

• The test order will verify:

  • The correct printing and inclusion of all required delivery documents.

  • The smooth and compliant shipping process in each market.

• Your onboarding manager will inform you once the review is complete and the test order is ready to be placed.

Once your documents are reviewed by your onboarding manager and the test orders are successfully completed, you can go live and start fulfilling Zalando orders with your selected carrier.

For further information on the specific requirements in each country, please refer to the Logistics providers per country article on Zalando Partner University.

Tip: To streamline your returns, leverage our Return Label Generation Label (RLG). RLG lets you integrate your service provider account details via zDirect. Once that's set up, our system automatically generates replacement return labels for your customers. They can easily get a new label through their customer account if they need one.

If you have questions about the submission process or country-specific requirements, please reach out to your onboarding manager.