Zalando has responded to recent stories questioning the figures it uses to publicise how the company deals with returns, during its annual press conference on 7 March. In Feb. 2023, the Flip investigative team (who also initiated the GPS-tracked Sneakerjagd, or sneaker chase) published the outcome of its latest project, casting doubt on Zalando’s claim that 97% of its returned fashion items can be resold.
Updated: 7 March, 2023
At the press conference held virtually on March 7, 2023, Zalando co-CEOs Robert Gentz and David Schneider were asked via journalists whether they plan to change the figures listed on the Zalando website, that state: “Zalando only destroys items in exceptional cases, for example if this is necessary for health reasons … This affects less than 0.05% of all returned fashion items” and that, “about 97% of returned fashion items can be sold through our online shop again.”
Robert Gentz, co-founder and co-CEO replied that Zalando stood by this number and would not be adjusting the figures. Gentz added that these figures only apply to Zalando, and not to its network of partners, and that Zalando relies on partners to act responsibly.
Together with investigative journalists from the German weekly magazine Die Zeit and the SWR TV format Vollbild, Flip tracked down ten garments bought at Zalando and equipped with GPS trackers, to find out where returns are being processed by the German e-tailer, who has adopted the Higg Brand & Retail Module (BRM), among other efforts. The result: the biggest proportion of the garments ended up in Gardno, Poland, where Zalando has outsourced most of its returns management. At the site, returns are sorted and processed, with apparently a part of them being destroyed and taken over by Swedish company Stena Recycling.
Zalando has moved the biggest part of its returns department out of Germany during the last few years. In 2018, the German Federal Environment Ministry introduced a law banning the destruction of as-new goods and returns. According to the Flip team, Zalando transferred large parts of its returns department from Germany to Poland in March 2019. The reorganization was complete by the time the law came into effect in 2020. In its article, the Flip team doubts that the company still owns and controls the full returns processing chain.
Other GPS signals came from a warehouse near the German town of Münster, owned by a stock dealer who sells off Zalando merchandise outside of Europe. After confronting Zalando with their research, the journalists suspect that even at the e-tailer’s headquarters, there is no precise overview of where the products end up. The research reveals a complex network of subcontractors and partner companies that forward returned goods.
Flip writes: “The longer we investigate, the more cracked Zalando’s sustainability promise becomes. The green façade is peeling off like the plaster on the walls of Gardno. What is revealed underneath is a finely spun spider’s web: Zalando has divided its business into several smaller and larger subsidiaries, some of which are outsourced to third-party providers, subcontractors and partners. This web, where our clothes get lost, has around 40 subsidiaries and over 1600 partners.”
Flip’s report was broadcasted on German TV (YouTube video embedded below) and featured in Zeit magazine, as did the “Sneakerjagd” in 2021.
