Zalando picks AWS for machine-learning services

  • December 8, 2020
  • Steve Rogerson

German lifestyle and fashion retailer Zalando will use AWS’s machine-learning services to innovate faster and offer a more personalised online shopping experience.

In addition to machine learning, the firm is using AWS technologies in analytics, compute, database, networking, serverless, storage and more to transform the company into a more data-driven organisation, optimising critical business functions such as supply chain management, pricing, marketing and customer care.

The machine-learning services will enable Zalando to improve the customer experience by reducing the time it takes to design, launch and scale features for its ecommerce platform. Using SageMaker to build, train and deploy machine-learning models quickly, and Amazon EMR to capture, store and analyse large volumes of data, Zalando’s engineering teams can use customer purchase data to create personalised shopping features such as individual product and size recommendations and to predict a customer’s future outfit preferences.

“Working with AWS, we’ve created a next-generation machine-learning platform that enables all of our data scientists and developers to collaborate better and work more efficiently with teams across the company,” said Rodrigue Schaefer, vice president at Zalando. “This platform is enabling us to continuously improve the customer experience by rapidly reducing the time it takes to design and implement state-of-the-art personalisation tools and new product features. From better stock management to a quicker returns process, we’ve also used a range of additional AWS services to drive operational efficiencies at all stages of the customer journey.”

Zalando is also using AWS machine learning to offer more personalised recommendations based on style preferences or a brand’s ethical practices, predict when items are in-stock for more accurate package delivery and return times, and forecast real-time availability of the latest fashion trends. Working with AWS, Zalando can develop and implement customer applications faster, such as creating digital avatars that allow shoppers to try on clothes virtually, and delivering a customer experience that enables shoppers to see which outfits fit them best without trying them on physically.

Zalando is using a wide portfolio of AWS services to drive operational efficiencies and track business performance in near real time with data and insights. It used AWS Lake Formation to create a data lake running on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) to enable its developer teams to collaborate more effectively and securely on projects across different service lines.

In addition to its data lake, Zalando also combines data from its internal SAP workloads, including accounting, supply chain management and ecommerce platforms, with AWS’s analytics portfolio, including AWS Glue, Amazon Redshift and Amazon Athena to produce transactional and analytical data reports that track business performance in real time.

These insights help Zalando’s size-and-fit team reduce size-related returns by predicting how a garment’s fit is impacted by the material or stretch and making size recommendations that match the customer’s fit preferences. Additionally, by migrating its SAP workloads to AWS, Zalando has reduced IT management time by more than 30 per cent.

“As one of the largest online retailers in Germany and Europe, it is exciting to see Zalando go all-in on AWS for its machine-learning provider to support their growth and innovation strategy,” said Klaus Bürg, general manager for AWS in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. “With millions of customers across Europe, Zalando is a great example of a company that is using machine learning to build, test and introduce new and more personalised features at scale. By using the full portfolio of AWS in conjunction with machine learning, Zalando will become a more data-driven, flexible, and scalable organisation that leverages customer insights to reimagine the online shopping experience.”

Founded in Berlin in 2008, Zalando brings head-to-toe fashion to around 35 million active customers in 17 markets, offering clothing, footwear, accessories and beauty. The assortment of international brands ranges from world famous names to local labels.

Mercado Libre, headquartered in Argentina and Brazil, has selected AWS as its primary cloud provider to transform the company into a data-driven organisation, improve user experiences, accelerate the launch of services, and support its regional expansion. Mercado Libre is the largest online commerce and payments provider in Latin America and connects businesses across 18 countries with more than 76 million active users.