Zalando moves from virtual to physical in Milan

By

Dominique Muret

Published
Apr 3, 2013

Zalando is moving offline in Italy in a bid to bridge the gap between traditional retailing and e-commerce. The German clothing and footwear shopping portal opened its first store in Berlin last year. It also has an ‘offline outlet’ in the German capital.

Zalando is opening a pop-up store in Milan at the same time as a popular furniture event that attracts some 400,000 visitors. The store will be located at 1 via Vigevano and will be open between 9 and 14 April, showcasing 150,000 items from the site’s Spring-Summer 2013 stock.

Amongst the brands sold on the site are Benetton, Cheap Monday, Donna Karan, Diesel, French Connection, Guess, mint&berry, Levi’s, Marc Jacobs and Patrizia Pepe. Customers will be able to process their purchases online at the store with the help of shop assistants.

“The growth we have seen in Italy over the first two years only goes to reinforce the strength of our business model. Now, we want to accelerate things by convincing those that are cautious of shopping online that it is the way forward. The experience had in the pop-up shop should help establish Zalando as a more tangible company,” says Giuseppe Tamola, country manager for Zalando Italy.