What did Zalando just launch with Sereact and CEVA?
Zalando, German physical AI company Sereact and logistics provider CEVA Logistics have put dual-arm robots into live, commercial operation to process fashion returns. The deployment runs at two fulfillment facilities, Greven in Germany and Świebodzin in Poland, and marks the launch of AI-powered automated returns processing across key fulfillment facilities in Germany and Poland [1].
This is not a pilot in a lab. The robots are sorting real customer returns today, and the three companies describe it as "the initial phase of a broader initiative to scale returns automation across Europe" [1]. For a commerce operation running at Zalando's scale, that framing matters: this is infrastructure meant to expand, not a one-off showcase.
Why is sorting returns such a hard robotics problem?
Returned fashion items arrive in unpredictable condition, which defeats robots that are pre-programmed for a fixed catalog of known products. Sereact's answer is Cortex, a platform that groups previously unseen objects, identifying, grasping and sorting items dynamically without requiring article-specific training or pre-determined article sets [1].
“At the heart of our collaboration with Sereact and CEVA is a fundamental belief: true innovation happens when technology and human potential advance together.”
That distinction is the core of the story. Most warehouse robotics deployed to date depend on knowing in advance what an item looks like. Returns defeat that assumption: a crumpled sweater, a mispacked box, a damaged shoe box all look different from how the item shipped out.
Cortex is designed to handle that variability as it happens rather than requiring retraining for every new SKU or every damaged unit. The system is also built to work alongside warehouse staff rather than replace them outright.
It is designed to work alongside humans, taking on highly repetitive handling to reduce physical strain on employees and allow them to move into higher-value roles where human expertise and judgment are required [1].
How does the deployment fit Zalando's broader strategy?
Zalando frames the deployment as part of a wider bet on AI across its business, not an isolated logistics experiment. The company joined Sereact's Series B funding round in July as a strategic investor, ahead of putting the robots into live operation [1].
That investment lines up with Zalando's recent financial trajectory. In its fiscal Q1 2026, Zalando grew its gross merchandise volume (GMV) by 21.7% year over year as both its business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) units grew sales [2]. Group GMV reached about $4.98 billion (4.29 billion euros) in that quarter [2], while its B2B logistics and software unit also expanded.
Zalando has been scaling AI tools on the customer-facing side too. The company said that, year to date, about 10 million customers have asked its shopping Assistant for advice, up from 6 million in all of 2025 [2]. Returns automation extends that AI push into the fulfillment side of the business, where cost pressure is highest.
| Facility | Country | Role in deployment |
|---|---|---|
| Greven | Germany | Live returns processing with Cortex-powered dual-arm robots [1] |
| Świebodzin | Poland | Live returns processing with Cortex-powered dual-arm robots [1] |
Why does returns automation matter to commerce leaders beyond Zalando?
Returns are one of the largest hidden costs in e-commerce, and apparel is among the worst categories because sizing and fit drive high return rates. Industry-wide, returns cost retailers about $816 billion in lost sales in 2022, nearly as much as the U.S. spent on public schools that year [3].
Processing each one is itself expensive: a single returned item can take far longer to handle than shipping it out did in the first place, and most returned goods never go back on sale at full price.
That backdrop is why the Zalando deployment reads as a strategic signal rather than a niche robotics story:
- A platform business that runs fulfillment for its own brands and, through ZEOS and B2B logistics, for partner brands has a direct incentive to cut the unit cost of a return.
- Robotics-as-a-service lets Zalando add automation capacity without owning the hardware outright, which matters for a network spanning multiple countries and seasonal return swings.
- For commerce and logistics decision-makers evaluating their own reverse-logistics stack, the signal is less about the specific robot and more about the architecture choice: physical AI that generalizes across SKUs, deployed as a service rather than a fixed capital investment, aimed at the highest-cost, highest-variability part of the fulfillment chain.
Sources
- [1]Retail Technology Innovation Hub, Retail technology innovation of the week: Zalando shapes future of fashion e-commerce logistics — retailtechinnovationhub.com
- [2]Digital Commerce 360, B2B growth, AI tech help Zalando sales and GMV rise in Q1 — digitalcommerce360.com
- [3]Fortune, The dark side of Amazon returns: Boxes getting sent back has metastasized to an $816 billion yearly problem — fortune.com
