At the end of its first trimester, Zalando surpassed the twenty million active customer milestone. Turnover for the quarter also grew nearly 25 %, to 980.2 million euro.
25 % more turnover
Things are moving very rapidly for the German company: in 2014, it had a “mere” fifteen million active customers, but that has now grown considerably and these customers also buy more often. First quarter sales reached 980.2 million euro, up 23.1 % compared to the same quarter last year. Zalando maintains its full-year 20 to 25 % turnover growth forecast.
Zalando’s increased turnover only generated a limited additional company profit, up 100,000 euro to 20.3 million euro. Its operational margins even dropped, from 2.5 to 2.1 %, but it still maintains its full-year 5 to 6 % margin forecast. “Our main priority is still a profitable growth”, co-founder Rubin Ritter said. “We will continue to strive for a larger market share and more European customers. We will also continue to invest in customer experience, technology and logistics.”
It also launched two pilot programs in Belgium over the course of the past quarter, in an attempt to increase customer satisfaction. A collaboration with start-up Parcify sends packages to the customer location based on geolocation and “Zalando haalt” (Zalando picks up) is the company’s trial to pick up return shipments from the customer’s door step.
