About You has revamped its marketplace. It has launched a new seller center. The onboarding process for external sellers has been adjusted, making it easier for other companies to sell on the growing platform.
The steps are aimed at offering small, medium-sized, and independent brands easy access to more than 12 million customers in 28 countries. According to About You, this is a new chapter in the company’s platform strategy.
Seller center
With the launch of the new seller center, the onboarding process has been reduced to three to four weeks. Sellers can manually upload their products or automate the process through existing shop systems. Registration fees have been eliminated, and product catalog requirements have been lowered. “Previously, the process was not suitable for smaller brands”, explains co-founder and co-CEO Tarek Müller to FashionUnited.
About You eliminates registration fees
Now it is, he says. The seller center provides sales partners with real-time insights into sales figures, click and conversion rates, pricing, and images, as well as socio-demographic user data.
Revenue and profit on the rise
In the past fiscal year, About You increased its revenue to a record amount of just over 2 billion euros (up 3.4 percent) and an EBITDA of 28.1 million euros. Management expects moderate revenue growth and strong adjusted EBITDA growth for the fiscal year that began in March.
About You expects strong profit growth
The expanded marketplace model, which includes logistics and advertising services, and the new seller center are expected to contribute to the growth. Shipping directly from factories should also strengthen About You’s position in the competitive battle with Shein and Temu. By the way, About You itself also has experience as a platform seller: it was one of the first sellers on TikTok Shop in Germany but pulled out after a few months due to disappointing results.
Zalando acquisition
With an offer of 1.2 billion euros, the larger domestic competitor Zalando has made a bid to acquire About You, “creating the leading ecosystem for fashion & lifestyle”. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the next few months.
With this, Zalando will not only strengthen its position in the consumer market but also become the new owner of Scayle, an ecommerce software provider. Thanks to the complementarity with Zeos, both parties claim this will create “the next B2B powerhouse for the ecommerce industry in Europe.”
