How Pepe Jeans scaled its own e-commerce across Europe

Founded in London in 1973, Pepe Jeans London is an iconic denim and lifestyle brand and part of the Spanish fashion group AWWG (All We Wear Group), alongside Hackett and Façonnable. Headquartered in Madrid, the group operates a diversified wholesale, marketplace and direct-to-consumer business across Europe and international markets.

As digital demand accelerated, the priority was not simply to expand into new channels, but to unlock more value from existing inventory. The goal: create a unified European setup that could serve marketplaces and pepejeans.com seamlessly — without fragmenting stock or increasing operational complexity.

When Pepe Jeans first joined Zalando, they relied on a dropshipping model from their central warehouse in Spain. While this kept stock under one roof, it created a ceiling for growth:

• The wait: Shipping from Spain meant slower delivery times for Northern and Central Europe.

• Fragmented potential: Stock was often "trapped" in one channel, invisible to customers on others.

• Operational friction: Fluctuating demand made it difficult to maintain a consistent customer experience.

The question wasn't just how to sell more, but how to do so without duplicating inventory across dozens of local warehouses.

And the goal was clear: create a single, flexible inventory setup that could support Zalando and other key European channels - and importantly also the brand’s own e‑commerce store - while remaining operationally simple.

Pepe Jeans’ partnership with ZEOS evolved step by step, each phase building on the same core principle: one stock pool, multiple channels.

1. Eliminating the distance: By moving from dropshipping to ZEOS Fulfilment, Pepe Jeans positioned their collection closer to the customer. This immediately slashed delivery times and freed the brand to focus on design and marketing rather than shipping labels. Today, this setup covers 22 markets for Pepe Jeans London, Hackett, and Façonnable.

2. Scaling marketplaces with zero friction: Because the fulfilment and integration infrastructure was already in place, expanding to new partners became a true plug-and-play experience. Pepe Jeans launched on ABOUT YOU in just 56 days using ZEOS Fulfilment and Tradebyte, powered by the same stock pool already serving Zalando. Instead of increasing inventory, Pepe Jeans extended this single stock pool to additional partners, including BestSecret, and La Redoute. This allowed them to maximise sell-through across multiple channels while keeping stock risk under control.

The strong results reinforced confidence in the one-stock-pool approach. As a result, AWWG Group also rolled out the same setup for Hackett, using ZEOS to serve both Zalando and ABOUT YOU from a shared inventory.

3. The D2C milestone: Launching own-ecom: In a landmark move, Pepe Jeans became the first partner to integrate its own webshop (pepejeans.com) into the ZEOS ecosystem. This was a bold strategic shift. We currently serve own.com markets including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Poland– and we are now expanding closer to the brand’s home market, starting with Spain, Italy, Portugal, and France.

By retiring the fragmented legacy setup, Pepe Jeans achieved:

• Total inventory fluidity: No more "siloed" stock. A jacket in a ZEOS warehouse can now fulfil a marketplace order in Berlin or a D2C order in Madrid with ease.

• Operational leanness: Reduced management costs by consolidating multiple marketplace operations into one single flow.

• Speed as a standard: Transitioning to ZEOS provided a fully flexible setup that fundamentally accelerated both outbound shipping and returns processing.

4. Optimising returns: To further enhance customer experience and operational efficiency, Pepe Jeans now leverages ZEOS Returns on both their own webshop and Zalando. Orders fulfilled from the Barcelona network are returned and processed locally across Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Poland. This accelerates return handling, reduces back-on-shelf time, improves product availability, lowers costs, and supports sustainability — all while rebalancing stock based on local demand.

Pepe Jeans’ 9× growth in items sold isn't just a marketing stat - it is the direct result of collapsing stock fragments into a single pool. Under the old model, a product might be "sold out" on a specific marketplace while sitting idle in the Barcelona warehouse.

By unifying their stock, Pepe Jeans ensured maximum availability across every channel simultaneously. When the product is always "in stock" and ready to ship, sales naturally scale.

The shift to ZEOS has transformed the brand's own e-commerce experience into a premium engine. This is reflected in their "Excellent" 4.3 Trustpilot rating, where customers especially point to the brand's logistics as a reason for trust and satisfaction:

• "Lightning delivery! Fast shipping, item as described, would buy again." Customers are noticing the shift from the old "shipping from Spain" wait times to localised, high-speed fulfilment.

• "Everything went smoothly - payment, shipping, and delivery. Five stars." A seamless journey from checkout to doorstep, made possible by a setup that handles peak demand without breaking a sweat.

• “Uncomplicated returns - always handled smoothly... easy to order and delivered quickly." Faster return lead times mean faster refunds and exchanges, directly boosting customer trust and repeat purchase behaviour.

• Unified stock = unlocked sales: 9× growth happens when you stop fragmenting your inventory across different warehouses.

• D2C deserves top-tier logistics: Outsource fulfilment to cut overhead and invest where it matters—customer loyalty.

Fast returns fuel resale: Local processing gets returned items back on sale within days and refunds to customers faster.