There have also been effects that have impacted margins. Higher costs in packaging and negative country mix and costs related to the Omicron corona wave led to higher temporary personnel costs in the warehouse. Now, let's take a closer look at the results. Almost 835,000 active customers, a significant increase. Our shopping baskets are now increasing to around 150 EUR in Q1, a record high level which shows that our customers continue to be willing to pay for premium products. We had a fantastic Q1 in the prior year, and to now exceed those numbers in 2022 with 7% growth is a great achievement when you look at the environment and also hear and read how other companies have done in Q1. We have gained further market share.
Adjusted EBITDA margin was 6.2% within our expectations. It was a more extensive sale period, the already mentioned temporary logistics personnel costs, and the investments in segment management. In addition to the main topic, bikes, there's also our further strategic focus of localizing new markets. This shows that our strategy, for which we realized the IPO, is extremely successful. The results, especially in Spain and France, were clearly convincing. Now it's up to my colleague, Timm, to explore more in the financial update.
Thank you, Andrés. I would now like to share with you some details on the results of the first quarter, 2022. Q1 proved to be a tough quarter for us, but we have again significantly increased our active customer base by 10% to 853,000 customers. The growth is driven by both pillars. Bike24 managed to get slightly more new customers on the platform and more existing customers were active. That is also proved by the development of the repeat order rate. However, it's not only the positive development in number of active customers, it is also the development of the customer KPIs that pictures the successful business model of Bike24. The average revenue per customer within 12 months again has increased to EUR 303.
The order frequency remained at the high level of more than two orders per year, and that is including new customers. The average order value is 4% higher than previous year and now at EUR 142. Let's turn to a more detailed look at our top-line performance. We were able to achieve a solid growth of 7% in the last quarter. The industry-wide supply challenges have had a clear impact on our growth rates. The lack of full bikes in the offering leads to limited growth of 3% in this product segment. That is lower than expected. However, in the course of the first quarter of 2022, the inventory situation improved to some extent. As a result, in March alone, we were able to achieve record sales of EUR 4 million with bikes.
That was 17% of total revenues in March and is an all-time high. That demonstrates the potential of this product segment for Bike24. The growth of 8% in PAC shows again that the increased installed base of bicycles in Europe drives the demand for parts, accessories, and clothing. Now, I would like to talk about the development of the individual regions. The developments of our localized markets, Spain, Italy, and France, is outstanding. Andrés will give you a detailed update later in the presentation, but overall, it's a growth of 68%. The new countries, Italy and France, are ramping up, and Spain alone grew by more than 80%. Over the last two years, Bike24 increased the revenues four times in the first quarter. If you compare the development in other European countries, the success of Bike24's internationalization strategy becomes even clearer.
The revenues in the European economic area are flat. The supply situation for PAC has also improved for smaller local players. Without a localized webshop, we lost some customers. If you compare the growth rates localized markets versus non-localized markets in Europe, the future potential of Bike24's strategy gets clear. In our core market, DACH, we grew by 5% despite the exceptionally high comparison base. Last year growth in the DACH region was around 82% in Q1. On a 2-year basis, we were able to increase sales by an average of more than 38% per year. The region outside European economic area shows a significant growth. The growth is driven by Asia and North America. The weak euro is supporting for Bike24 in these markets. The negative effect of Russia is netted by UK customers.
We are able to serve the customers in U.K. after the Brexit since this year again. A look at working capital shows a clear recovery for the bike segment. Bike24 is now the first time significantly above last year level. The PAC inventory remains on a high level. That high level is necessary to be prepared for the season. There are still uncertainties in the supply chain, for example, the recent lockdowns in China. Let's now move to profitability. Overall, Bike24 generated an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.2%. As expected, the gross margin has normalized and are now on the pre-pandemic level. I will give details for that line item on the next slide. The selling costs are negatively impacted, mainly by a less favorable country mix for the shipping expenses. 2% more of our parcels were shipped outside Germany.
The negative impact of personnel and miscellaneous expenses is temporary. Our investments into talent and increased cost due to the listing is a step up and will phase out near-term vis-à-vis the revenues. On that slide now, you can see a comparison for the last four years on gross margin and EBITDA margin. During the IPO, we already communicated that in the medium term, we expect margins to return to pre-pandemic levels. The first quarter of 2021 was characterized by abnormally high margins. In Q1 2019, we had a gross margin of 28%, and in 2020 of 28.2%. This year with 28.4%, we are slightly better. On EBITDA margins, as already mentioned, the impact by personnel expenses and other not sales-related costs will phase out. You can consider 2019 margins to be a medium-term target.
The as-adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year 2019 was 11.4%, and we are confident that we will be back at this level in the next couple of years. I would like to hand back to Andrés, who will give an update on our strategic initiatives.
Thank you, Tim. Back to the agenda on our business update. I would like to repeat that the growth strategy we presented during the IPO is working. We are growing strongly in localized countries. All focus areas and growth initiatives show results. The launch in France and Italy was successful, especially if you compare the KPIs with Spain at that time. Here in comparison, the number of webshop visits and also the online search visibility. The Spanish launch in 2020 was supported by the pandemic-related bike boom. France and Italy show these strong results on the back of the boom, so with very high comps. Again, all of this shows that our internationalization playbook works. This makes us very confident for the further development as well as the high share of bike revenues in France and Italy. Here you can see the individual results at country level.
Despite the difficulties mentioned and the high costs in Spain continues to outgrow all other countries and proves that our internationalization strategy is more than just a translated webshop, and that also the further playbook steps are accelerating the business. Italy, and especially France, show outstanding results, besides being in a transitional quarter within the first localization step. Now, a few words about the outlook. There are three major challenges facing many e-commerce companies. The inflation, the war in Ukraine, and disrupted supply chains. We have never seen so many negative effects at the same time and in such severity in the last 20 years. This is leading to a decline in consumer spending, and it's difficult to predict how this will develop. Our guidance is achievable. We are currently expecting the lower end.
We can certainly, when we report on H2 results, report more substantially as the good months in our seasonal business, that means May to August, are still ahead of us. Nevertheless, we started very well in Q1, a solid quarter, and we are satisfied with it. Our business model is resilient and of course more resilient than other e-com businesses. We offer products that are needed again and again. That is the strength of our business model. We were able to demonstrate this once again. You can see that in the incredible customer loyalty and semi-recurring sales nature in the PAC segment. We were again able to show that our growth strategy is working. This is a clear signal for us to consistently pursue this strategy. That is the investment in localization and more focus on bikes. The launch for Italy and France shows this impressively.
We are looking now at further countries to localize. Staying profitable in this difficult environment is not a given. We are managing to take market share at the same time, which will be very helpful in the long run. Thank you now for your attention, and we are now open for your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wish to ask a question may click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen, and then click the Raise Your Hand button. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove your question from the queue, you may press star followed by two, or please press the Lower Your Hand button. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may click the Q&A and raise your hand button or press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Grace Smalley from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. It's Grace Smalley from J.P. Morgan. Two quick questions, please. First, please could you comment on the current trading trends you have seen more recently in April and the start of May? Then, second, in terms of what you're seeing in terms of consumer sentiment, I guess how is this showing up in your sales? Are you seeing lower traffic? Is it lower conversion, or are you seeing any signs of a consumer trading down, or is it really just them delaying their purchases for now? I'd just be interested to see the kind of initial signs you're seeing in terms of any potential consumer weakness. Thank you very much.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you for the question, Grace. I think March ended very well. However, the consumer sentiment in April was different. It was a poor month. I think there are three drivers for that. What we saw in April, it was first of all, consumer sentiment due to the war. We have also in our core region, DACH, we have the holiday season over Easter. Compared to last year, I think a lot of people are going on vacation again. Also the weather in April was not perfect to start the season. Anyhow, in May, we saw acceleration in growth again, that's very promising results in the first one and a half weeks of May.
The good weather comes out, vacation season is over, and we see lot more traffic on our website again. Your second part of the question, what we see is that the customers are price sensitive. Yeah. They looking again on discounted products. Also the overall traffic on our website is below our expectations, I would say, Q2.
Okay, thank you. Maybe just one quick follow-up, and then I'll get back in the queue. Just asking, on that, given those kind of the volatility you are seeing in the consumer, so April weak but then May good again, any change in terms of how you're thinking about your long-term, investments and your growth strategies if the consumer was to continue to slow, would you carry on with your growth investments, particularly in kind of the localization markets? Thank you.
No, definitely not. We will not change any of the strategy. As you can see in the figures, really, I think the best example is if you compare the non-localized market development in Europe and the localized market development, so flat versus 68% revenue growth. We are on the right way, and we will not change any investments there.
Understood. Very clear. Thank you.
To ask a question, please click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and then click the Raise Your Hand button. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one. As a reminder, for questions, please press star followed by one. One moment for the next question, please. Our next question is from the line of Catharina Claes from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Miss Claes, please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, everyone. Thank you. I just have three questions. The first one would be, you mentioned the country mix, I think it was in the profitability slide, if I said that correctly. Could you elaborate a bit further on this? I mean, I assume that especially from the marketing campaigns in France and Italy that this will already be a difference, but just to be sure that there's nothing else I'm missing. Secondly, maybe can you give us an update on the further countries you're looking to localize? What's the status there? I mean, you mentioned it already, the last results a little bit. Whether there has been any progress made. Lastly, the fulfillment center in Spain, you mentioned this is well on track.
Could you just remind us what the next steps will be and when we can expect it to be in operation? Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Thank you. I think I will take the first question and Andrés, the second and the third. The first question regarding country mix, that was more related to shipping expenses. Yeah. What we saw is that the number of packages we sent outside Europe was 2% higher, and so we paid for the carriers to ship a parcel from Dresden outside of Germany much more than if we have domestic revenues. That's the reason why we saw there a difference in cost as percentage of revenues.
The question about localization. The warehouse in Spain will be ready in the next few weeks, so everything is on time. What I also mentioned in the presentation is that we are looking now for more countries to localize. This decision we will have in the second half which countries we will localize.
Yeah. Maybe I would like to be more precise here that the facilities of the warehouse will be ready so that we could start to install the AutoStore system, to install the systems. As we already communicated, we expect that we will send end of Q3 the first parcels out from that warehouse. Yeah.
All right. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and then raise your hand button. There are no more questions at this time. I hand back to Moritz Verleger for closing comments.
Yeah. Thanks everyone for joining our call. Timm and I will be on the road in the next couple of weeks, so we are looking forward meeting you personally. Also, thanks Nathalie for organizing.
Thank you very much.
Bye.
Bye.
Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.