Last year, Zalando introduced a minimum order value for free delivery. The shipping fees associated with this are now causing confusion in some places, because according to the news portal online retailer News, the fees also apply if the shipping is made via the Berlin online retailer’s partner program.
Zalando confirms this fact at FashionUnited’s request and explains that the fees incurred not only consist of shipping costs, but also of “cost items such as processing and other services such as customer service”. These costs are incurred by Zalando and are collected by Zalando, according to the Berlin online retailer. Other excluded costs, such as shipping items sold through our partner program and Connected Retail, are borne by the partners themselves.
However, Zalando also argues that these costs incurred by the partners are already calculated and differentiated in the fee model. Attention is paid to different price categories and an attempt is made to compensate for the low profitability of low-priced items.
“The fee models were designed in such a way that they cover the relatively higher fulfillment costs for lower price categories and ensure that our partners can work economically across all price categories,” says Berlin.
Since the introduction of the minimum order value, the average shopping cart size has increased and, according to Zalando, was 56.70 euros in 2022. The proportion of orders that are below the value for which the corresponding shipping costs would be incurred is in the low single-digit percentage range.