Introduction to Zalando Shipping Solutions

Zalando Shipping Solutions (ZSS) is our domestic and cross-border shipping solution. How does it work? When an order comes in, ship your customer-ready parcels to one of our injection facilities in Germany or Italy. We’ll then provide quick, last-mile delivery to your customers across Europe.

Here's how ZSS can help your business:

• Go international without a headache. One contract gives you access to our entire tried-and-tested last-mile delivery network. You'll save up to 15% on transport costs thanks to our favourable carrier terms.

• Go further, faster. Once you’re live, you can expand to new Zalando markets in around three weeks. We'll help you meet our customer experience goals, keeping you visible and attracting more shoppers.

• Keep your brand in charge. You'll stay in charge of your brand's unboxing experience, including shipping beauty articles (even dangerous goods).

• Already more than 3.6 million shipments dispatched.

• 13 markets enabled (AT, BE, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, IT, LU, NL, PL, SE) for fashion with multiple markets enabled for beauty (see the table below).

• 3 injection nodes in Hamburg, Lahr and Verona, with more to come.

• 10 local last-mile carriers.

• 12 enabled integrators  (Baselinker, ChannelEngine, Commercus, Koongo, Magic Store, Rithum, Teknosis, Tradebyte, Sello, Lengow, OnDrop, Neteven).

The ZSS process ensures a fast and reliable customer experience:

1. Order placement: Upon a customer order, you prepare the customer parcel in your warehouse.

2. Dispatch to a Zalando hub: You send the customer-ready partcel to one of our three outbound sorting centres (Hamburg, Lahr, or Verona) by injecting it within 48 hours. 

3. Last-mile delivery: Our Zalando Shipping team sorts and ships the order using our local last-mile carrier network.

4. Customer delivery: Customers receive their order in their local market quickly and conveniently. 

5. Customer returns: You decide how to manage customer returns, by choosing one of our flexible returns solutions (see the section below).  

You decide how to manage customer returns by choosing one of our flexible options. If you choose to use Zalando Return Solutions (ZRS), we process the returns and trigger the customer reimbursement. This leads to reduced costs for you and a seamless experience for the customer. 

Want to learn more? Head over to the introduction to Zalando Return Solutions (ZRS) article.

Zalando Shipping Solutions is available to Partner Program partners using their own fulfilment. Before you can get started, you'll need:

• To be operating in one of the 13 enabled markets for fashion: AT, BE, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, IT, LU, NL, PL, SE.

• To integrate ZSS through one of our 12 enabled integrators: Baselinker, ChannelEngine, Commercus, Koongo, Magic Store, Rithum, Teknosis, Tradebyte, Sello, Lengow, OnDrop, Neteven.

Please note that for Beauty products we discuss the requirements case by case.

The beauty readiness matrix below outlines eligibility for shipping dangerous and non-dangerous goods in limited quantities by market.

If you are interested in leveraging one or more of Zalando’s logistics services, please reach out to your known point of contact, or get in touch via our support form. Please select the Topic: Interested in one of our services? and Request type: Interested in ZSS.

Zalando Shipping Solutions (ZSS) is one of three, modular services under Zalando Logistics Solutions. For a quick overview of our shipping and returns solutions, and how you can combine them for the perfect fit, watch the video below.