Zalando

High five! ??????? This year marks the fifth anniversary of our partnership with Helsinki Pride - a journey that has strengthened our commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion within our company and across our communities. "We proudly continue our work to support the LGBTQIA+ community and promote equality within our organisation and society," share Fabio Baum, General Manager for Nordics & Benelux. Highlights from this year: ? To bring the campaign closer to the local queer community, we hosted a live panel discussion and styling consultation at the official Helsinki Pride House. The panel featured the cast from the Finnish “Their Time” 2024 Pride campaign. They shared personal insights into how they navigate self-expression through style and identity. ? Thought leadership at Helsinki Pride’s partner events, Working with Pride, where Fabio Baum discussed inclusive leadership and Pia Ahlgren showcased how inclusion is embedded into everything we do at Zalando. In the words of Pia Ahlgren, Site Operations Lead at Zalando Tech Site, Helsinki, "It’s inspiring to know that we’re not only supporting Pride but embedding inclusion into everything we do. Being ‘inclusive by design’ is at the heart of our vision to make everyone feel valued and welcome." Read more in our blog: https://zln.do/40SNOr1 #LGBTQIA #HelsinkiPride #ZalandoNews

Our success at Zalando has always been deeply rooted in our company culture to push ourselves to create remarkable experiences for our customers and for partners. Since founding Zalando in 2008, our environment has changed a lot, but Zalando's teams have always been strong at identifying the shifts and opportunities in our industry, and then building the products that our customers and partners love. The industry is once again undergoing significant change, presenting us with the chance to shape the future. Generational and technological shifts open up big opportunities for combining seamless shopping with inspirational content, discovery and entertainment to create engaging, memorable experiences. Follow us on the journey of exploring and sharing a few recent examples of how various teams at Zalando have been testing new ideas and formats to make that vision a reality: _ Styling on #avatars: Currently live in the UK and Czech Republic, it’s a whole new way to discover fashion on Zalando, by styling outfits and visualising them on AI-generated avatars. _ Follow my Style: Available in markets where Stories on Zalando is live, this feature lets customers discover styles through the eyes of fashion icons, getting inspired by their favourite products and brands. _ Live hub in DACH: Customers can explore future live shows, rewatch missed ones, and shop products featured in each show. _ Curated boards: Now live in six markets, these boards are dedicated to specific lifestyle themes, giving customers another inspiring way to discover products. Just like we have done before, we will act fast to leverage these shifts. Each of these pilots will help us learn what truly resonates with our customers and how we can better serve and inspire them. Being truly customer-centric doesn’t always mean launching grand, sweeping initiatives—it’s about deeply understanding what our customers value and consistently exploring the best ways to deliver on those needs. Learn more about these initiatives here: https://lnkd.in/eKy_7w5c #CustomerCentricity #Innovation #FashionEcommerce

Shopping online is increasingly efficient and easy nowadays, but it’s not always a fun or inspiring experience. Hear from our SVP of Corporate Development Padmaja Bommareddy talking about how customers are increasingly craving inspiration and engagement when shopping online. And learn how we are leveraging inspirational content and technologies like generative AI to meet these expectations and make the shopping experience relevant, personal and fun. Click here to explore several initiatives that various Zalando teams have been piloting to make this vision a reality, from curated boards to styling on avatars and more: https://zln.do/3V13Mvz This video kicks off a series in which we pose three questions to leaders at Zalando on the areas of their expertise. Stay tuned for the next editions. #FashionInspiration #Ecommerce #generativeAI #ZalandoNews

This week on our podcast, "Pieces of me", Heike Lari, Director of Partner Consultancy at Zalando Marketing Services (ZMS) joins Janine Matos to talk about storytelling in marketing and the future of customer engagement. They cover the diverse aims that brands have in partnering with ZMS, as well as the importance of personalisation in reaching the right audience. They explore how unique shopping experiences can elevate brand engagement and discuss the strategies ZMS uses to stay ahead in a competitive market. Tune in: Spotify: https://zln.do/3ztO1lS Apple Podcasts: https://zln.do/3NmR9FO Or your favourite podcast platform! #InsideZalando #ZalandoPiecesOfMe

Our Applied Scientists have recently published a new research paper: "Retrieve, Annotate, Evaluate, Repeat — Leveraging Multimodal LLMs for Large-Scale Product Retrieval Evaluation". They introduce a novel approach to large-scale product retrieval evaluation using Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs). Evaluated on 20,000 examples, their method shows how MLLMs can help automate the relevance assessment of retrieved products, achieving levels of accuracy comparable to human annotators and enabling scalable evaluation for high-traffic e-commerce platforms. This framework has been deployed in production at Zalando, enabling regular monitoring of high-frequency search queries and identifying low-performing queries for targeted improvements. This continual assessment allows us to quickly pinpoint areas where the retrieval system needs adjustments, helping to ensure a high-quality customer experience. It enables us to significantly reduce costs and to enhance customer experience faster by prioritising the queries that need the most attention and optimising our resources accordingly. You can find the paper on arXiv: https://zln.do/3UYNLG6 A short summary is also available on our Science Blog: https://zln.do/4fTmJrR Kasra H., Thomas Kober, Josip Krapac, Roland Vollgraf, Weiwei Cheng, Ana Peleteiro Ramallo #LLM #ZalandoScience

You still have the chance to participate on the virtual Black Girls Tech Summit on November 21st! This virtual event, hosted on Zoom Events, focuses on connecting our global community of thousands of Black women in technology and finance to colleagues from sponsoring businesses. They can find out more about the cultures, benefits and opportunities alongside engaging in key topics for discussion based on the theme: The grounding. The event will be hosted by Girls Talk Corporation CEO & Founder, Vanessa Chiedza Sanyauke. We're delighted to be the event's European Headline sponsor. Together, we’re committed to empowering Black women in tech by providing access to career opportunities and skill development. Tickets and the full agenda can be found here: https://zln.do/3YM4fTi #BGTS #BGTS2024

Be part of our journey as we open our next Zalando Outlet Store in Germany in Spring 2025, bringing fashion to Freiburg im Breisgau. Join us and shape the future of fashion at our new Zalando Outlet Store. Find your next leadership role in Freiburg here:?https://zln.do/4ewl22o #InsideZalando?#ZalandoOutlet

Our VP Marketing, Sara Sp?nnar, joined the EqualVoice Summit in Zurich to share our approach to inclusive and diverse advertising. Hosted by Ringier, the event explored solutions to biases in media, advertising, and business, including the role of AI in representation. During her panel with Jung von Matt CEO Peter Figge, Sara highlighted how inclusivity is embedded in everything we do at Zalando. Diversity and inclusion is central to our marketing efforts, from collaborating with diverse creative teams to crafting campaigns that challenge stereotypes and reflect a more equal vision of society. With more than 50 million customers across 25 markets, our goal is to ensure that every customer feels seen and represented. By prioritising diverse voices both in front of and behind the camera, we’re committed to making inclusivity the norm in the industry. #EqualVoice #DiversityInAdvertising #InclusiveFashion ??: @adrianbretscher

We hosted the Berlin edition of the Black Girls Tech Summit in collaboration with Girls Talk Corporation for the third time on our campus. The event brought together 150+ people to take part in a mixture of workshops, panels and talks, on topics such as tech tools, effective leadership and digital accessibility. We are thrilled to make this event happen together and for all the insightful thoughts and connection we shared during the day. #BGTS #BGTS2024

We were honoured to recently host the Startup-Verband’s Town Hall at our Berlin headquarters, bringing together leaders from the startup and political spheres. With an audience of over 100 attendees, the event featured a conversation between CDU/CSU Chancellor Candidate Friedrich Merz and Startup Verband Chair Verena Pausder. On what turned out to be a memorable day in both German and global politics, the event underscored the importance of open dialogue between tech companies and policymakers – a priority we’re proud to support at Zalando. ??? Our Co-CEO David Schr?der opened the evening by highlighting Zalando’s journey from startup to DAX-listed company and reaffirming our commitment to supporting innovation, diversity and a competitive regulatory environment for Germany’s digital economy. In his introduction Christian Miele, Chair of the Startup Verband’s Kuratorium, emphasised the essential role of startups in driving growth and resilience in Germany in his introduction. In their discussion, Verena Pausder and Friedrich Merz explored topics central to the future of the tech and startup ecosystem, including financing, digital transformation and the regulatory landscape. You can watch the recording of the Town Hall event here: https://zln.do/3YLetmQ Thank you to the Startup-Verband and all our speakers for a meaningful evening. Here’s to more moments that connect, inspire and empower our community! #Innovation #Startups #Berlin #DigitalEconomy #ZalandoNews ?? : Startup-Verband / Lukas Schramm