Words by Smiley Team
Europe's leading online platform for fashion and lifestyle, Zalando, is expanding Zircle, its webshop catering to those looking for guilt-free retail therapy. Offering pre-owned clothing for a circular economy, the store is now branching out to reach new markets in Sweden and Denmark.
Zalando has a goal to minimize waste and keep materials in use, which involves eliminating all single-use plastics by 2023. To pursue this target, the platform is piloting plastic-free packaging for all orders from Zircle, replacing plastic with recycled paper.
Launched in Germany in 2019, Zircle quickly spread to Spain, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Poland.
Leading the latest expansion, the retailer’s director of UX Recommerce Mareike Hummel said: “We are very excited to expand Zircle to Sweden and Denmark. Over the past two years since launching Zircle in Germany and expanding across Europe, we have gathered many learnings that helped improve the customer experience when shopping on Zircle.”
Also working on the initiative, their head of circularity Laura Coppen added: “Zircle will support our target of extending the life of 50 million fashion items by 2023 by enabling our customers to give them a new life quickly and effortlessly.”
The outlet offers more than 100,000 fashion items from well-known brands that are now available to Nordic consumers, in response to a demand for a convenient online second-hand shopping experience.
A survey conducted by the outlet revealed that around half of its Swedish and Danish customers would be interested in buying pre-owned fashion within the next six months.
Visit Zircle here: www.zircle.se and www.zircle.dk
Zircle’s expansion comes after the e-commerce platform partnered with The Ellen MacArthur Foundation to plan how to reduce its carbon footprint and promote a circular economy.
We have just ten years to significantly reduce our carbon emissions and meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and the fashion industry has a large part to play in this.
Reliant on sweatshops abroad and carbon-intensive materials, fast fashion is responsible for 20 per cent of global water wasted and 10 per cent of carbon emissions. So fashion companies have a long way to go to 100 per cent sustainability and efforts such as Zalando’s are vital in this journey.
