Fast fashion retailer Zalando is planning to build a new fulfilment centre in the Netherlands as it looks to support ambitious growth targets in Western Europe.
Strategically located next to the A12 highway, the site at Bleiswijk near Rotterdam will serve customers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain and the UK.
Zalando plans to invest €200 million in the centre’s intralogistics. It will be highly automated with a staff of 1500, a floor space of 140,000 square metres and be capable of housing 16 million items. The site will also make use of sustainable technologies such as solar panels.
A joint venture of Somerset Capital Partners and USAA Realco-Europe is undertaking the development.
Zalando expects the site to begin delivering parcels in summer 2021, complementing its existing network of nine fulfilment centres across the continent. It will allow it to offer better delivery lead times in the local area, including next and same-day delivery.
The centre will support the fast fashion company’s goal to more than double revenues in the region over the next five years and reach 20 billion euros in gross merchandise volume by 2023 or 2024.
Jan Bartels, SVP customer fulfilment, said: “A strong logistics network is the foundation for realising our growth strategy and the vision of becoming the Starting Point for Fashion.
“By constructing a new state-of-the-art fulfilment centre in Bleiswijk, we are confident that this is an important step forward in building the infrastructure to achieve.”
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