Zalando has commissioned research and advisory firm Oxford Economics to assess the company’s direct and indirect impact on European economy in 2023. The 71-page report, titled The Economic Impact of Zalando in Europe*, presents Zalando as “a European and digital entrepreneurial success story with high impacts in regional economic clusters and local communities,” claims the company.
Zalando was founded in Berlin in 2008 as an online shoe retailer and quickly evolved into a pan-European fashion platform. Today, more than 16 years later, the e-tailer operates across 25 European countries and has a customer base of over 50 million active users. In 2023, Zalando supported a total gross value added (GVA) of €9,521.6 million in Europe. Nearly 60 percent of this effect was driven by the company’s supply chain (indirect effect). The European countries that benefit most from the economic activity stimulated by Zalando’s supply chain include Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy and France. With €1,500.4 million, the direct effect accounted for 16 percent of Zalando’s total economic impact in terms of GVA in Europe. In Germany, the company’s home market, Zalando contributed €4,807.6 million in GVA to the country’s GDP.
According to the report, Zalando supported around 113,000 jobs in total across Europe in 2023, of which 53,000 in Germany alone. Most of the jobs across Europe (70,000) were supported through its supply chain. Direct employment accounted for 14 percent of all jobs supported. Meanwhile, for every one person directly employed at Zalando, another 6.1 jobs were supported in the company’s supply chain and through wages paid.
*The full study is available for download from Zalando’s website at https://corporate.zalando.com/sites/default/files/media-download/Zalando-SE_Impact-Report-2024.pdf
