As of: February 27, 2024, 6:08 p.m
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On the screen of a smartphone you can see the logo of the app from the online retailer Otto.
© Fabian Sommer/Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH/dpa/archive image
The Corona years were golden times for online retailers like the Hamburg-based Otto Group.
Now things are going downhill.
There is no quick recovery in sight.
Hamburg - Consumers' savings mode has caused the online business of the Hamburg-based Otto Group to collapse sharply.
Unlike the previous year, this not only affected sales in Germany, but also abroad to the same extent, such as the important US market.
The bottom line is that the trading group expects global sales of just under 10.8 billion euros in the ending 2023/24 financial year (until the end of February), around 9 percent less than in the previous year.
“The buying mood was low and continues to be low.
And that is certainly not least due to the still high inflation,” said CEO Sebastian Klauke on Tuesday in Hamburg.
“For the 2024/25 financial year, we are expecting growth in e-commerce for the Otto Group again,” he said.
“However, we do not expect a more noticeable recovery until 2025.”
Otto expects sales of around 6.6 billion euros for the German market in the current financial year and 4.2 billion euros for foreign markets - with a decline of around 9 percent in each case.
Klauke emphasized that the Federal Association of E-Commerce and Mail Order Germany (BEVH) recently reported a drop in sales of 11.8 percent in sales of goods in e-commerce for the calendar year 2023.
The Otto Group has therefore performed better than the competition in the German market and gained market share.
Klauke emphasized that the weak business development was not surprising.
“In the current financial year, securing results was and is the priority.
In this respect, a decline in sales in e-commerce was to be expected,” said the Otto manager.
“In addition, Christmas business was less strong than hoped, both here and in the market as a whole.”
However, thanks to strict spending discipline, partially increased sales prices and a nationwide hiring freeze, there has been an improvement in operating profitability compared to the previous year.
Otto noted positively that the group had not lost any customers in online trading.
The size of the shopping carts has decreased, not the number of buyers - according to Klauke, a good prerequisite for the hoped-for recovery in business.
dpa