Zalando (finally) manages first yearly profit

Turnover up 25 %

Zalando’s presentation of its preliminary numbers states that it has reached this 62 million euro because of better cost control, although it refrained from revealing its net profit numbers at this time. Last year, the Berlin-based company had to deal with a 114 million euro loss.

Over the past year, the German company managed a 25 % turnover increase to 2.2 billion euro and it expects similar growth (20 – 25 %) again this year. That is good news for a company which recently (in October 2014) went to the Frankfurt stock exchange.

“Grand performance and huge success”

Zalando faced a lot of criticism over the past few years because it had billion euros’ worth of turnover and still piled up one onerous year after another. CEO Rubin Bitter is therefore very satisfied to be proven right: “Our 2014 performance shows that our business model is sustainable and can generate meaningful margins. This is a grand performance from our teams and a huge success for Zalando.”

The good news means Zalando feels empowered to keep up this method in the near future: “We will focus on long-term growth over the coming years and we will not focus on short-term margin maximization.”

The online shoe and fashion retailer has currently entered 15 countries and allegedly welcomes 100 million visitors per month, about half (43 %) through smartphones and tablets.