Zalando quits India

Germany’s largest online shoe retailer Zalando has shut down operations in India. Zalando.de

claims to offer cutting-edge shoes and fashion items with excellent customer service and the advantages of easy and secure online shopping experience. Zalando offers branded shoes for women, men and children. It works with more than 500 brand manufacturers and offers brands such as Boss Orange, Guess, Timberland and Geox, and fashion labels such as Apepazza, Latitude Femme and Beverly Feldman. Cultural differences could have been a cause for Zalando to leave the country. It is very hard for international companies to set up a base in India. Moreover, some of the employees at Zalando were poached from Yebhi.com, the e-commerce site that began as an online shoe store and has since morphed into a fashion and apparel e-commerce site.

The footwear market in India is worth $5 billion. Zalando was launched in 2009 by the Samwer brothers, who sold another start-up Citydeal.de to Groupon last year. It has been incubated by Rocket Internet, a Berlin-based investor who is also known for a slew of sites including online matchmaking site eDarling, etc. Positioning themselves at the forefront of the online shoe market, Zalando actively engages customers through social media channels. This includes regular fashion updates and news via their dedicated fashion blog, as well as daily tweets featuring the latest promotions and new products available.