Early this year, the returns centre for the European e-commerce giant Zalando started operating in the Goleniów Industrial Park. Ten months later
(on Friday 18th November) a cornerstone ceremony was held at a logistics centre in Gardno near Gryfino.
Roughly fourteen months after the commencement of construction a major part
of the structure of the main hall is ready. The new facility of 130 thousand m2 will occupy 24 ha of land, and it will be built at the cost of at least EUR 150 million.
The company will employ about one thousand people. The first shipments are expected to leave the centre in Gardno late summer 2017 to be delivered
to customers in Poland, Germany and Scandinavia. This is the first investment
of the European e-commerce fashion mogul beyond Germany, and the entire investment is implemented in our region.
Reasons for locating the investment in West Pomerania were discussed during
the event at the site in Gardno by David Schröder, Senior Vice President
for Operations at Zalando: We continue observing a rapid development of the Polish e-commerce market. Moreover, the Polish version of our platform had a tremendous success after just four years from the moment it was established. Those factors convinced us to create another fulfilment center within our network right here as we plan to continue expanding all over Europe. The competitiveness of the Polish
e-commerce market was crucial for our decision to invest. Later the same day,
Mr. Schröder visited the Goleniów based returns centre situated in a hall
of 3200 m2 leased from Prologis. The centre employs 200 people and the company continues recruiting new employees.
Zalando is the lead fashion e-commerce business in Europe. Its network covers such countries as Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The company, with its headquarters in Berlin, offers a wide range of clothing, shoes and accessories for women, men and children providing free shipping and return. Zalando’s web addresses register about 160 million hits every month. Every month we deliver millions of shipments to our customers. Last year, Zalando attracted
as much as three million new customers. And to respond to such a rapid increase, we want to strengthen our European Logistics network, said David Schröder.
The recruitment process for the Polish centres of Zalando is the responsibility
of Fiege, Germany. Jens Fiege, Member of Board at Fiege Stiftung & Co. KG., present at the cornerstone ceremony, reminded everyone that the company has been also present in Goleniów for the past four years employing three hundred people (for Zalando and Stylepit). Fiege is one of founding members of the eBusiness Cluster of West Pomerania based in Goleniów.
