The Hamburg Otto Group has significantly increased its online sales in the second year of Corona – albeit at a slower pace. Group board member Sebastian Klauke spoke on Thursday of an expected normalization after the turbulent growth in the first year of Corona.
In the 2021/22 financial year, which ends in February, the retail and service group’s total online sales worldwide are expected to have increased by around 10 percent to 11 billion euros – after an increase of around 23 percent a year ago. In German online trading alone, Otto is expected to generate sales of 7.6 billion euros – after around 7 billion euros in the same period last year, as Otto reported on the basis of initial forecasts. The Otto Group intends to publish the overall result for the financial year in May.
The e-commerce association BEVH recently reported that gross sales of goods in e-commerce as a whole in Germany rose by 19 percent last year to 99.1 billion euros. However, the figures are only comparable with the Otto figures to a limited extent. Because the reporting period extends from March 2021 to February 2022, these largely ignore the first calendar quarter, which was strongly influenced by the corona lockdown last year with corresponding positive effects for online trading. (dpa)