Zooplus has high hopes for the anniversary campaign, which is expected to provide an additional boost to business in the second half of the year.
The sales revenues of online retailer Zooplus in the first six months of the year increased by 84 mio euros or 13 per cent to 727 mio euros (1st half of 2018: 643 mio euros). Zooplus reports sales growth for its private label products of as much as 29 per cent compared with the previous year.
For new customer business Zooplus reports an increase of 23 per cent. The company noted a pleasing trend in its gross profit margin also, which rose by 0.7 per cent to 28.4 per cent compared with the same period in the previous year. Expansion of its high-margin private labels to include food and litter products and a further fall in the number of non-profitable customer orders, among other things, exerted a positive influence on this trend, according to Zooplus. While earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) improved to 4.5 mio euros compared with the previous year, earnings before taxes (EBT) remained at the same level at -9.1 mio euros.
Improvements in the gross profit margin and logistics costs freed up additional resources for marketing and new customer acquisition. These accounted for 3.3 per cent of sales in the first half-year, as compared with 2 per cent in the first half of last year.
Board chairman Dr Cornelius Patt has high hopes for the second half of the year, which will be characterised by a marketing campaign marking the company's 20th anniversary. The board confirmed the forecast for the financial year, which envisages an increase in sales revenues of 14 to 18 per cent and an EBITDA of between 10 and 30 mio euros.
