Pre-onboarding and your onboarding requirements
This guide will give you an overview of your onboarding journey, including your tasks and requirements.
Before signing the contract and starting your onboarding journey with Zalando, please familiarise yourself with the full list of tasks and mandatory requirements. Do also ensure you have access to zDirect in order to fill out your Company's Legal Entity, which is needed to set up your contract. zDirect is the main portal you will use to set up, manage and optimise your business on the Zalando platform.
Key steps to complete
Step 1: Select countries to launch
It’s important that you have already defined the countries in which you want to go live, before you start your onboarding with Zalando’s Partner Program. Find out all of the countries where you can sell with Zalando’s Partner program here.
Step 2: Choose your logistics set-up
Choose the logistics solution that best suits you. You can either use one of the Zalando Logistics Solutions or self-fulfilment. Explore detailed information on each logistics option available with Zalando here.
If you decide on self-fulfilment, ensure you collaborate with a last mile carrier from the approved list of logistics providers per country. Free shipping and returns (within 100 days) must be offered.
Please note that Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Croatia are currently only available via Zalando Fulfillment Solutions (ZFS) and are excluded from self-fulfilment.
Step 3. Decide on your integration method
You can work with one of Zalando’s preferred third party integrators (Standard Integration via Zalando certified integrators (non-DI) or onboard via the Direct Integration (DI) via zDirect User Interface (UI) which is only available for ZFS Partners.
Step 4. Make an assortment plan
Collaborate with your Sales Manager to estimate the number of SKUs (articles per style and colour, not size) for your initial assortment launch, based on the total number of silhouettes or styles you offer.
Submit the predetermined launch assortment for creation during your article onboarding stage. You can check if your article already exists on Zalando, in which case you won't need to do a full article mapping, but only need to provide the article identifier and EANs to be ready to submit stock and price and start selling your articles.
Step 5. Check and sign agreements
Carefully check and sign the following agreements:
Partner Program Agreement
Connected Network Agreement OR
Contract with approved Last Mile Carrier (for self-fulfillment only)
Contract with third party integrators ()
General requirements
Please submit the following requirements via channels indicated below:
Requirement | Description |
|---|---|
Know Your Customer (KYC) questionnaire | Please submit your one-time KYC questionnaire as soon as possible in order to ensure a smooth onboarding process. Your point of contact at Zalando will share the link to the questionnaire. |
Value Added Tax (VAT) | Share the VAT number for your legal entity and one eligible warehouse location (if it is located in a different country from your legal entity). Submit your VAT number via zDirect portal, which you’ll get access to during pre-contract signature stage. Your VAT information is important, especially: - regarding your warehouse or storage location - if you are or want to use Zalando Fulfillment Solutions (ZFS) - If you want to leverage the One Stop Shop (OSS) in any country. Read more on VAT OSS. |
Product safety documentation | If you are onboarding toys, beauty and/or electronics, make sure you submit the corresponding questionnaire and additional documents as requested. Find more info here. |
CE label | Make sure that your articles are CE labelled, if you are selling the categories listed here. Please note that you will not be able to go live without the appropriate labelling in place. |
European Article Number (EAN) certification | Make sure all your articles have a valid EAN number, consisting of 13 digits. |
Master Data requirements
Please submit the following requirements via email to your onboarding manager:
Requirement | Description |
|---|---|
Brand logo | If you are a brand integrating for the first time with Zalando, make sure to share with us the brand logo. |
Size charts | Please ensure that you prepare size codes for all brands and silhouettes you are onboarding. Find more info size charts. |
Silhouettes | Review the silhouette guidelines for the categories of articles you are onboarding. |
Seasons | Review our seasons timelines & never out of stock (NOS) guidelines to identify seasons for the articles you want to onboard. |
Image and content guidelines | Please take a look at our image and content guidelines and ensure you comply with them. If your images are not compliant, they will get rejected during our article validation in the Article Onboarding stage. |
Logistics requirements
Relevant for all partners choosing self-fulfilment:
Requirement | Description |
|---|---|
Last Mile Carrier and Return Carrier | Share the details of your Last Mile Carrier with us and ensure that your contract is signed. You cannot continue your onboarding journey if this information is missing. |
Delivery documentation | The following delivery documents must be included in the package: Delivery note Return note Return flyer Return label We strongly recommend that you use our templates in order to ensure full compliance with the Zalando requirements. You can request a prepaid return label from your return carrier. Please make sure that you have delivery documents ready before the first shipment. |
Invoices creation | Please confirm you can create invoices on request and adapt them to Zalando standards with our templates. Invoices are mandatory for BE and FR and must be included in delivery docs. If your legal entity is non-EU, you don’t need to create invoices. |
Return warehouse (EU) | Make sure you have a valid EU address for returns and recalling assortment to your warehouse. |
Warehouse readiness | Make sure your warehouse is ready to process and ship Zalando orders with approved logistics carriers. |
Return tracking link | Make sure you can provide a tracking number for returns to prevent CXM score downgrade after go-live. |
Shipping method | Review the shipping method for your approved Last Mile and Return Carrier to ensure you comply with our requirements. Share your shipping method information directly with us under Outbound carrier details in zDirect. |
Relevant for all partners choosing Zalando Logistics Solutions:
Requirement | Description |
|---|---|
German VAT | Apply as early as possible for your German VAT to onboard with Zalando Fulfillment Solutions (ZFS). |
Invoices creation | Please confirm you can create invoices on request and adapt them to Zalando standards with our templates. Invoices are mandatory for BE and FR and must be included in delivery docs. If your legal entity is non-EU, you don’t need to create invoices. |
Zalando Shipping Solutions (ZSS) questionnaire
| Please submit your questionnaire for ZSS. |
Return warehouse (EU) | Make sure you have a valid EU address for returning damaged products and recalling assortment to your warehouse. |
Relevant for partners going live in Germany, Austria, France, Spain and Italy:
Requirement | Description |
|---|---|
EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) | Please apply for EPR registration number. Share your proof of registration or upload it to your zDirect account under ‘Business Profile’. Read more on EPR in Germany, EPR in France and EPR in Spain. For Austria, you don’t need to share information with Zalando. However, please make sure to be compliant with the Austrian EPR requirements as it is a contractual obligation, as outlined in the Platform rules. |
Triman logo (for France only) | Review the information about the mandatory Triman logo and sorting instructions for the articles you plan to sell in France and their packaging. |
Special packaging requirements in Italy | There are two specific obligations for environmental labelling in Italy: Material of the packaging must be indicated with an alphanumeric code (e.g. XYZ123) B2C packaging must be clearly labelled with appropriate instructions for disposal. Please find more detailed instructions here. |
Technical requirements
Relevant for partners integrating via third party integrator:
Requirement | Description |
|---|---|
Integrator contract | Make sure you have a signed contract with your integrator for each sales channel/country you want to integrate. |
Connection to integrator | Confirm that you are connected to the Integrator by 1. Having a contract signed and 2. Having started working on the connection to their portal. |
Relevant for partners via Direct Integration (DI) using the zDirect User Interface:
Requirement | Description |
|---|---|
Logistics via Zalando Fulfilment Solutions (ZFS) | In order to use the zDirect UI, you will have to leverage ZFS as a mandatory logistics method. |
Maximum number of articles ≤ 200 | Have an article assortment of up to 200 articles per season. It takes approximately five minutes to enter the information of a standard article with three colour variants. |
Once you have gone through the action points mentioned above, you can start the onboarding process which consists of four stages: