At the start of the year, Europe's largest fashion online retailer Zalando had to accept a drop in sales for the first time since the company was founded.

In the first quarter, revenues shrank by 1.5 percent to 2.2 billion euros, as the Berlin Dax group announced on Thursday.

It was to be expected that the level "from the exceptionally strong quarter of the previous year" would not be maintained after the pandemic, said co-boss Robert Gentz ​​to journalists, adding with a view to the high inflation and the war in Ukraine: "The main issue of the People just aren’t into buying fashion.”

Because of the continued high investments in the logistics network, Zalando is now making losses.

From January to March, the company reported an adjusted operating loss (EBIT) of almost EUR 52 million.

In the same period of the previous year there was still an operating profit of 93 million euros on the balance sheet.

Zalando is now a bit more skeptical about the outlook for the year, even if Gentz ​​expects a "significant acceleration of business in the second half of the year".

Sales growth should be at the lower end of the forecast range of 12 to 19 percent and adjusted EBIT at the lower end of the expected EUR 430 to 510 million.

Zalando wants to adapt

"We believe in the strength of our business model and are taking further action to improve our results," said Gentz.

Purchasing will be adapted to the changed customer behavior and the costs incurred per order will be passed on to logistics partners to a greater extent.

In the Corona crisis, Zalando was one of the winners, along with Asos and Boohoo from Great Britain and its competitor About You from Hamburg, because many people bought clothes and cosmetics online because the shops were closed.

After the pandemic, however, they like to go back to stores, which is why Zalando was only able to increase its number of customers slightly compared to the previous quarter to 48.8 million.

The company, which was founded in Berlin in 2008, is now active in 23 countries and intends to enter two new markets this month.

Over the course of the year, Zalando intends to continue investing between EUR 400 and 500 million and is building new logistics centers in Frankfurt, in Bydgoszcz in Poland and in the Paris region, for example.