An integrated content-commerce ecosystem that shifted Zalando from transactional catalogue to a destination that earns attention.

Zalando is Europe's largest fashion and beauty ecommerce platform. When I joined, the platform was fundamentally transactional: a catalogue with search and navigation. The gap was clear. Consumer behaviour had shifted. Inspiration precedes intent. Most time is spent in feeds, not brand environments. Zalando needed to become a destination that earns attention before it converts demand.

Over four years, I led the design and strategy for a portfolio of interconnected content surfaces. The feed became the primary discovery layer, blending editorial content, brand storytelling, and product recommendations in a single scrollable experience. Boards introduced persistent curation, letting users and editors build shoppable collections around trends and themes. Video, brand profiles, and live streaming extended the ecosystem further, each surface designed to compound rather than reset.

A new operating model

The work was not just product surfaces. It was an operating model. Content supply pipelines, editorial workflows, measurement frameworks that tracked engagement through to commercial impact, and brand partner commercialisation that turned content into a revenue driver. Four pillars shaped the ecosystem: attention is earned before intent, brand and performance live in one system, content compounds instead of resetting every season, and every surface connects to commerce.

The ecosystem connected four years of product development into a coherent system. The strategic frame I built became the language Zalando used to articulate its content and inspiration proposition to brand partners and internal leadership. Feed, boards, video, brand profiles, and live streaming now work as an integrated system where attention, discovery, and commerce reinforce each other.

Ask me about

• Building an operating model that connects editorial, product, and commercial
• How feed, boards, video, and brand profiles work as an integrated system
• Measuring content impact in e-commerce beyond clicks and impressions
• Why attention compounds when you stop treating content as campaigns
• The unintended consequences of adjusting content ranking mechanics