Zalando Launches Zalando Extended and Plans AI-Assisted Checkout
Zalando’s third-quarter GMV increased 7.5% year over year, the company launched Zalando Extended, and it plans to use AI agents to help consumers complete on-site checkout from 2027.
What are the key facts?
- 1Zalando’s third-quarter GMV increased 7.5% year over year to approximately €4.5 billion
- 2Zalando launched Zalando Extended to bring products from other online stores onto its platform
- 3Zalando plans to use AI agents to help consumers complete on-site checkout from 2027
- 4The first pilot partner is home platform Westwing
What happened?
Zalando announced its third-quarter operating results on November 3. Third-quarter GMV increased 7.5% year over year to approximately €4.5 billion, revenue increased 5.1% to approximately €3.2 billion, and active customers reached 63.2 million, up 2.9% year over year. Zalando said the fashion category continued to grow, while beauty and sports performed strongly within lifestyle categories. Its Partner Business and retail media business achieved double-digit growth. The platform also launched Zalando Extended, which is intended to bring products from other online stores onto its platform, and plans to use AI agents to help consumers complete on-site checkout from 2027. The first pilot partner is home platform Westwing. For cross-border sellers of apparel, footwear, beauty, sports, and home products to Europe, this indicates that European traffic entry points are shifting from searches on a single platform toward aggregated and AI-assisted product discovery. Sellers need to prioritize product attributes, sizing, materials, available inventory, delivery commitments, and return policies.
What does this mean for cross-border sellers?
Zalando is expanding aggregated product and purchasing entry points through Zalando Extended and AI agents, so European consumers may no longer rely solely on search within one platform. Sellers of apparel, footwear, beauty, sports, and home products to Europe need to improve the completeness of attributes, inventory, delivery, and returns data so products can be aggregated and recommended.
What should sellers do now?
- 1Create an attribute checklist for apparel, footwear, beauty, sports, and home Listings in European stores, check sizing, materials, specifications, and variant information item by item, and complete missing fields for priority products.Listing Optimizer
- 2Check available inventory, delivery commitments, and return policies for priority European Listings; verify product pages, store settings, and actual fulfillment conditions separately, and produce a record of exceptions and corrections.Procurement List
- 3Select products intended for European aggregation channels, standardize title, attribute, and selling-point formats, remove unverifiable or inconsistent descriptions, complete a Listing compliance and character-count check, and retain the records.Listing character checker