Zalando grew its gross merchandise volume (GMV) by 21.7% year over year in its fiscal Q1 2026 as both its business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) units grew sales.
In 2023, the company launched the Zalando Ecommerce Operating System (ZEOS). Robert Gentz, co-founder and co-CEO, said Zalando has made progress, through its apps, in driving the platform’s distribution, customer frequency and monetization. He said it has also made progress advancing the technology platform that powers both its B2B and B2C operations.
The retailer has also offered Zalando Fulfillment Solutions (ZFS) since 2017. Gentz said during Q1, Zalando launched ZEOS with its first ZFS partner in Norway. That expansion means Zalando now offers ZEOS in 26 markets, he said.
Anna Dimitrova, chief financial officer, said fulfillment services helped lift B2B revenue 24% in Q1. The company’s ZEOS Fulfillment offering includes both ZFS and multichannel fulfillment.
Zalando is No. 5 in the Europe 500 Database. The market research tool ranks the largest 500 online retailers in Europe by their annual ecommerce sales.
Additionally, Zalando is No. 24 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database. That tool ranks the 100 largest such marketplaces by third-party GMV.
Zalando B2B unit helps revenue, GMV grow in Q1
In its fiscal Q1 2026, Zalando’s group GMV reached about $4.98 billion (4.29 billion euros). That’s up from about $4.10 billion (3.53 billion euros) in the prior-year period.
Zalando B2B sales grew 23.6%, to about $344 million (297 million euros), from $394.66 (240.0 million euros). It said its operating technology has helped to “reduce the complexities of cross-border e-commerce in Europe.”
Total Zalando revenue reached about $3.48 billion (nearly 3 billion euros) in Q1. That was up from about $2.82 billion (about 2.42 billion euros) the prior year.
Meanwhile, the B2C unit at Zalando saw Q1 revenue increase to about $3.15 billion (about 2.71 billion euros), from $2.53 billion (about 2.18 billion euros).
The number of active customers at Zalando rose to a new high of 62.3 million. That was an increase of about 10 million from the prior year, according to the company. Zalando’s average spend per customer increased 2.9% in Q1 to reach about $354 (305 euros). Its loyalty program, Zalando Plus, ended Q1 with more than 18.5 million members.
How Zalando is using AI
“AI is a powerful catalyst for both growth and efficiency, and we’ve successfully used data and algorithms to drive our business for over 15 years now,” Gentz said. “Yet in recent years and months, AI capabilities at scale and the positive impact on our business has been accelerating.”
The seller said it has made “significant” advances in using artificial intelligence (AI) to help with growth and efficiency. Zalando said its Assistant tool offers beauty-related recommendations.
The Zalando Assistant can give customers personalized product suggestions for both fashion and beauty in a single conversation, according to the company. Zalando said that year to date, about 10 million customers have asked the Assistant for advice. That’s an increase from 6 million in all of 2025, the company said.
Additionally, it said it’s expanding its Assistant “into a true lifestyle companion, deploying advanced robots across its logistics network, and using generative AI image processing to boost product onboarding speed.”
Zalando said it has continued to roll out AI-driven robots across its “pan-European” fulfillment network, working with partner Nomagic. Specifically, Zalando said robots automate 2 million picks per month. That reduces manual handling while helping Zalando to scale its fulfillment operations across Europe, it said.
Outside of ecommerce operations, Zalando is also using generative AI to help with articles. It said using generative AI for image processing helps Zalando to automatically detect and correct “visual errors” and adds missing “material composition data” to about 6,000 articles per day. As a result, Zalando said, it can now get up to 85% of articles online in less than three days.
Percentages may not align due to rounding. Check back for more earnings reports.
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