Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the third quarter 2023,2024 analyst and investor conference call. I am Alessia, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session, and you can register for questions at any time by pressing star and sne on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Sander van der Laan. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much, and good morning to all of you for the release of our Q3 results. I'm sitting here together with Mark Langer, Group CFO, and it's a pleasure to share with you a continuation of, I would say, a strong financial and business performance of the Douglas Group across the third quarter of the current financial year. We want to give you, well, basically, as we have been doing over the past quarters, consistently, an update on the business highlights by myself. I will then hand over to Mark, who will provide an update on our Q3 financials. Subsequently, I will give a brief update on some of our core strategic initiatives, and then we will wrap up and open up for Q&A. Earlier this morning, at eight,
7:30, we have released the results for this quarter, by the way, on the back of a guidance upgrade regarding our sales numbers. So we can report a strong third quarter with strong sales development in both our channels, so stores +7.2% and e-com +7.5%, so very close to each other, I would say. And as you know, it's not either the store or online, no, we believe in the combination of bricks and clicks, so the fact that both channels are growing very, very similar numbers is very positive and promising.
In addition to that, we have again been able to grow our adjusted EBITDA with 5.6% above last year, which is slightly lower than the top line. So in this quarter, we delivered a little bit less growth, but still for the full, for the year to date, and also our full year outlook is very positive. So we delivered an adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.7%. Just to remind you, Douglas is operating a seasonal business, so typically our first quarter is by far the highest in terms of absolute EBITDA and also in terms of EBITDA rate. And then in the remaining three quarters, the EBITDA rate is always below the first quarter, so by the end of the year.
We ended up last year with 17.7, and we are still well on track with our midterm guidance to move towards 18.5 in the midterm, and that includes a significant improvement in the current financial year. In addition to these financial, let's say, results in this quarter, we have made good progress with the implementation of our Let It Bloom strategy, which is also not only helping for the quarter, but certainly also helping for the midterm development of the company. So I wanted to then highlight some of the key, I would say, achievements of the business over the past few months, and the first one is, and I'm very proud about that, that is the reopening of our luxury store in Vienna, which we call internally the House of Beauty.
This is by far the biggest in terms of sales, Douglas store, not only in Vienna, but also across Austria, and quite likely very soon across all the Douglas stores in Europe, because this store is competing with another big flagship store of Douglas in Frankfurt for the number one position within the group. This is a two-floor store, as you can see on the middle page, with a very, I would say, historic, let's say, design and architecture. This also required, I would say, a significant investment in terms of capital, but we are very confident that we will earn all that capital and more back in the near future.
All the big brands, the existing brands, so Chanel, Dior, La Prairie, La Mer, wants to be there, but also a new brand wants to be there. So we have, for instance, launched Charlotte Tilbury in this store, doing extremely well. We had a very big grand opening event with not only a lot of customers, but also people who wanted to see this, as you can see on the right. And so the first few weeks in terms of sales have been beyond expectations. So that also strengthens our belief that these iconic flagship stores can play a very important role in our bigger network development philosophy. On the next page, you can see something about the integration of Parfumerie logistics into Hamm.
So up until recently, we have a warehouse in Hamm, which we call our OWAC, One Warehouse All Channels, which was, until recently, let's say, supplying the Douglas business in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. By the way, this OWAC was already the result of an integration of many warehouses in Germany and Austria over the past two years, so there was a lot, a lot of simplification and efficiency gain. But we still had a standalone warehouse in Pfedelbach, in the south of Germany, supporting the Parfumdreams business across 16 different European countries, and we have now integrated that warehouse into Hamm. So we are going to close the Parfumdreams' warehouse in the next few weeks. We're going to get rid of the rental contract.
We're going to get rid of the second pile of inventory which we have there, because most of these articles we already had in stock in Hamm, and we have also said goodbye in a very, I would say, respectful way to 100+ employees, who are all migrating into, let's say, new jobs. So there is a lot of efficiency gain, both P&L wise, but also network and capital wise, which we are going to harvest. And, in the past few weeks, we've integrated the warehouse. So now all the deliveries from Parfumdreams, not only for the DACH geographies, but also for the 30 markets beyond DACH, are now being executed from this warehouse.
And as you can see on the page, the process, the way of working in the systems are now the same for both Parfumdreams as well as for Douglas. But the output is different, because for Douglas, we are still basically delivering a Douglas branded box and for Parfumdreams, we're delivering a Parfumdreams branded box. An additional benefit is that Parfumdreams is also the partner program partner of Douglas. So sometimes a customer from Douglas orders online an article from Douglas, which used to be supplied in a Douglas box, and they would order an article which was basically being supplied by Parfumdreams, but the customer didn't know that, and that would be supplied by a different supply chain in a second box.
Now, as of now, those two articles are going to be supplied in the same box, so that's another efficiency matter, also from a customer perspective. The next initiative is that we are very proud that we have now been officially certified as a great place to work. So for the second time, we have done a very significant employee engagement survey in, in a wider, bigger part of the organization. So not only in Germany, but also in Switzerland, Hungary, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. And as a result of that, not only our employees have appreciated the opportunity to speak up, but also we achieved certain scores, which now gives us the official qualification that Douglas is a great place to work.
Which is very important because people is one of the key assets, I would say, as a premium beauty retailer. Talking about premium beauty retailer, on the next slide, you know that as part of Let It Bloom, we want to focus predominantly on premium beauty. So we do not want to operate in the mass beauty segment, let's say, the, in the drugstore type of brands. And we also have decided to withdraw from basically healthcare and pharmacy. So not so long ago, before my arrival, the company had acquired Disapo , but based on our strategic review, we've decided to dispose Disapo , and I'm happy to share that we have successfully closed this transaction by the end of July.
So we are no longer the owner, and also our financial numbers as of the first of August, are no longer being impacted by Disapo . So in the quarter we report, there is still Disapo , and the quarter which we currently are operating, there will be one month of Disapo , but going forward, this will lead to more focus, and it will also enhance, basically our EBITDA, because the profit contribution of Disapo was, let's say, beyond the average of the Douglas Group. So that's going to help us as well. And then, the final highlight I wanted to share is a brief update on the four, let's say, core beauty categories. So we're now in the middle of the summer.
Fragrance, by far the number one category of Douglas, it's the biggest one, continues to show strong growth, 9.1%, which is actually ahead of the, I would say, the average of the company. With brands like Jean-Paul Gaultier, Prada, Valentino, really do driving, let's say, this top line more positively. Skincare is basically accelerating, especially by the enormous success of the Sol de Janeiro brand. We see indices of 250, 300, 400, 500% in different markets. The average for the group is +311%, and this get, the Sol de Janeiro brand is now starting to become one of our biggest brands.
Yesterday, we were talking with one of our core markets, and in that market, Sol de Janeiro has grown from 1.7% of sales last year to 5.4% of sales this year. So that's really bringing a lot of incremental sales. And what is also cool, Sol de Janeiro is a brand which is especially appealing to younger female customers. So we also see customers of, let's say, 16 years, 17 years, 21 years growing ahead of, I would say, the total customer flow. Makeup doing really well. Charlotte Tilbury is very selective, so I'm happy that we have now been able to start opening an additional 30+ doors in Germany. But we also have now the rights to start selling Charlotte Tilbury in 10+ stores in Austria.
And we are working on more Charlotte Tilbury expansion going forward. But also a more mid-market position brand like e.l.f. is doing very, very well, especially in Italy, but also in DACH/NL, it's very successful. Hair care, being the smallest category with the largest potential, growing ahead, I would say, of the other categories. And that growth is going to accelerate, because we are currently working on a quite aggressive, let's say, exchange in our space allocation. So in many stores, let's take Germany, for example, in the next few months, we're gonna basically significantly expand hair care in 100+ stores in Germany, where we are now going to roll out Kérastase in those 100+ stores, which are, by the way, the biggest stores.
So Kérastase is the number one premium haircare brand. That's also happening in more countries. But also a brand like Olaplex continues to contribute to this this top line. So with the acceleration in haircare, we are also basically growing, I would say, the pie we want to eat from. So overall, I would say a very positive development. With that, I wanted to hand over to Mark, who wants to give you further insights into the development of our Q3 financials. Mark, please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Sander, and ladies and gentlemen, warm welcome also from my side. The third quarter was clearly another successful quarter for us as a group, both in terms of top line growth as well as profitability. Our sales momentum continued to be strong, which we attribute to our attractive omnichannel offering, spanning a large product range and paired with superb beauty services. In both channels, we welcome more customers. We continue to see a higher reported net sales growth than like-for-like in the stores, due to our network development program. Also, in e-com, we had a difference between reported and like-for-like sales growth, due to the sale of Disapo, which Sander mentioned, which we have separated between like-for-like and reported. In Q3 again, we were able to pass on price increases to our customers.
This was a general development in the market and was widely accepted by our customers. Our adjusted EBITDA, therefore, increased by more than 5%. The slight adjusted EBITDA margin decrease is due to more personal expenses, which we employ in our expanded store network, or used to fund the expansion, as well as last year's wage increases due to the then high inflation. We spent cautiously on marketing and improved our logistics cost ratio. Now, I would like to guide you through the developments in our segments, starting with our largest segments, DACH/NL, which is comprising Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Belgium on slide 12. Within the segment, we saw a nearly double-digit net sales growth on reported level and double-digit like-for-like growth. This growth was driven by both channels, especially our e-com business.
Just like in the first half of the year, we saw a strong increase in footfall and customer numbers in our stores. Of these stores, 9 have been or are in the process of being refurbished. Our DACH/NL customers increased the basket size and the net sales per item, also, they bought slightly less items. In the e-com part of the segment, the number of orders increased strongly, with a moderate increase of the average order value. The result was a slightly more than 15% net sales increase. Due to that strong development, the e-com share in the segment remains the highest in the group and rose to 39.6%, far above the 32% group average. When it comes to Adjusted EBITDA, we were able to pass on price increases. The price adaption was widely accepted by our customers.
We received more marketing contribution from our suppliers and spent even more efficiently on marketing. Staff costs increased on an absolute level, but remained nearly stable in relation to net sales. The logistic cost, too, increased in absolute terms, but remained stable in relation to net sales. In total, these effects result in the strong uplift of Adjusted EBITDA and the virtually stable Adjusted EBITDA margin for this segment. In France, our e-com business grew strongly while our store business grew slower. Please go to slide 13. The footfall in our French stores increased significantly, although slightly less visitors actually made a purchase, so that the conversion rate slightly decreased. Here we have started, respectively, already refurbished 10 stores. Moderately higher basket size and a significantly higher value per item supported the store sales.
As the e-com net sales in France grew stronger than the stores, the sales share increased to 18.7%. Our customers placed more orders with significantly higher average order values. In order to maintain our margin in the competitive French market, we steered our pricing for a balance between top line growth and profitability. At the same time, cost increases could be passed on to customers. Post the tariff increase in last year, our personal costs increased in absolute terms and relative to net sales. We further invested into the rollout of our e-com platform. All in all, this resulted in the slightly adjusted EBITDA margin compression of 30 basis points, while the absolute EBITDA contribution continued to increase. Moving on to our segment, Southern Europe, on slide 14. The divergent sales trend in the two channels continued.
Also, the e-com sales performance improved significantly in the course of the quarter. The sales growth in the segment was therefore fully driven by the stores. In our store business, a much higher number of our visitors were attracted by our offering, and again, many of them turned into customers. The started or concluded refurbishment of 25 stores supported this. Still, customers were more hesitant with regard to number of items per basket and thought for lower priced products. But the higher number of our customers completely made up for that and led to the rise in net sales. Although we welcome more customers to our e-com channel, these customers were more price sensitive, just like in the stores, and slightly reduced their basket size.
This resulted in the slight decrease in e-com sales for the total quarter, but the sales trend significantly improved in the course of the quarter. The share of our e-com business decreased to 13.4%. When it comes to adjusted EBITDA, the positive development seen in the past quarters continued. We recalibrated our pricing mechanism to the price sensitive customers and the price perception for key value items, and saw positive effects on net sales and margins. At the same time, we kept the personal cost ratio stable, logistic cost as a percentage of net sales increased. In the prior year, year Q3, a negative inventory valuation effect weighed on profitability, which did not reoccur this quarter. As a result of all these effects, the adjusted EBITDA rose by more than 12%, and the adjusted EBITDA margin increased.
Coming to Central Eastern Europe on slide 15. This segment, again, achieves the highest level within the group with regard to net sales growth and profitability. In the store business, we recognized a higher footfall in a larger number of stores as we opened net 18 new stores since the beginning of the fiscal year, and started or finished the refurbishment of 23 stores. The conversion rate decreased slightly, and as the number of items per basket increased significantly, the lower net sales per item were fully offset. Also, our e-com offering attracted many customers. We saw a strongly increased number of orders at significantly higher average order values. This combination drove the net sales increase in e-com. As this performance was stronger than the performance of the stores, the e-com sales contribution rose to 21.4%.
As customers were price sensitive this quarter, we carefully adjusted our prices in order to nevertheless pass through price increases. This was accompanied by more marketing activities. Following the wage increases last year and a higher staff base from the store openings, our personnel costs increased in absolute terms and in relation to net sales. Despite significantly higher net sales, our logistics cost ratio remained nearly stable, while service costs increased. As explained at early occasions, the opening of new stores has a temporarily dampening factor for margins due to the time it needs until the store is fully operational, known by the customers, and therefore, as the expected footfall and sales level. All effects combined led to the decrease in the Adjusted EBITDA margin, despite the higher Adjusted EBITDA. Still, the segment shows the highest Adjusted EBITDA margin in the group again.
Coming to our fifth segment, Parfumdream s Niche Beauty, on page 16. In the third quarter, the segment was impacted by the transfer of the former separate Parfumdreams warehouses that Sander mentioned to our central warehouse in Hamm, Germany. This led to a temporary lower product availability and therefore hampered sales. This integration has been successfully concluded and will lead to better product availability, as well as an improved network and capital in the future. While we served less orders in the quarter, the basket size were higher. In our pricing strategy, we pursued selected measures to pass on price increases with a strong margin focus. At the same time, we had a one-time effect in our marketing costs due to the Easter shift versus prior year, as well as the temporary lower sales, which decreased marketing income this year.
Personal costs decreased lower than net sales, leading to a higher personal cost ratio, while our logistics costs remained stable. Altogether, this resulted in the turnaround in the segment on Adjusted EBITDA level. Let me now summarize how the development on segment levels add up per channel on group level. Please go to slide 17. Our stores welcomed a significantly high number of visitors, also helped by the net opening of 24 own stores in the first nine months. Turned a large part of them into customers with on average, higher basket sizes. Our customers bought less items per basket at higher prices. E-com grew for the 8th consecutive quarter. The channel benefited from a significantly higher order intake, as well, as on average, higher average order values. In total, we had more visits, while the conversion rate was stable.
E-com had a net sales contribution of 32%, unchanged with of last year's Q3. Let us now move on to Slide 18, and review the major developments in our P&L. Thanks to our pricing strategy, which allowed the pass on of input price increases to customers, combined with our purchasing abilities, we expanded both gross profit and gross profit margin. The main influencing factors in our net operating expenses this quarter were higher personal expenses for more employees, especially in newly opened stores, as well as wage increases. We kept our logistic cost ratio stable, but spent more on services and the different IT projects. Some of these costs are mirrored in the adjustments to EBITDA, but they, but these reduced further. Below the adjusted EBITDA line, we have differentiated in the Q3 fiscal year 2023-2024 between a reported and a pro forma view.
With that, I would like to give you a clear view on our operational business and the profitability of our group without any distortion, which resulted from especially the former financing structure and the refinances, refinancing post our successful concluded IPO. This pro forma view assumes that the IPO and resulting changes in our financing structure was made before the start of the fiscal year, which means before October 1, 2023. The largest, most obvious difference is the financial result, which comes from two main differences. First, we will profit from the lower interest burden due to the much lower indebtedness, as well as the significantly improved margins under the new financing structure. Secondly, we'll see significantly lower valuation effects, which always occurred under the old financing structure from the embedded options in the former senior secured and PIK notes.
This brings the financial results down to 4.4% of net sales instead of 13.3%, and will increase our financial flexibility, both for further deleveraging and the resulting ability to pay dividends in the future. There's also a smaller effect in D&A from impairment on the stores closed during the quarter, which we adjusted for, which brings the D&A ratio to the targeted ratio of around 8%. As said before, this also includes amortization of the rights of use assets according to our IFRS 16, which make up for roughly two-thirds of D&A. We've applied an expected tax rate of 32% on all adjustments and pro forma effects to come to the net results.
Bottom line, the full elimination of the temporarily distorting effects would have resulted in a net result of only -EUR 2.7 million, a major difference to the reported numbers. In the appendix of our presentation on slide 43, we have provided you with the same overview for the first nine months of the fiscal year. Here, the difference is even larger. Instead of EUR 12.2 million net income, we would have achieved EUR 169 million. From next fiscal year on, you will see the full effects of our IPO and refinancing in the reported figures too, thereby demonstrating that we are on the right track to achieve our goals. Moving on to net working capital and CapEx on slide 19. Our average net working capital was EUR 232.4 million.
This mainly resulted from higher inventories to support the strong business. As a percentage of LTM net sales, the working capital amounted to 5.3%, a slight decrease to the prior quarter. With the warehouse move in Germany and the continuous use of the AI-based inventory management software, RELEX, in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Poland, DIO decreased by another two days. As planned, our CapEx was higher, with a strong focus on store refurbishment and store openings, mainly in Central Eastern Europe. Main investment related, especially to the 26 stores that we refurbished, as well as the 14 net store openings in this quarter. Furthermore, we continue to invest in the establishment of a group-wide uniform e-com platform and further investments into our IT stack, as well as international e-com as part of our Let It Bloom strategy.
Let us now review our cash flow and liquidity situation, starting with the free cash flow bridge on slide 20. Since we have already discussed most of the positions, I will only explain the position others, as we didn't touch upon this one yet. The cash inflow from the positions others, resulted especially from value added taxes, and on a smaller scale, from an increase of provisions and other short-term liabilities. Thanks to the positive development in adjusted EBITDA, combined with a higher cash contribution from working capital and others, our free cash flow after EBITDA adjustments amounted to EUR 465 million, in an increase of almost 30%. On slide 21, my last slide before I hand it over back to Sander, we show liquidity and leverage.
Our net debt, including IFRS 16 liabilities, amounted to EUR 2.2 billion, carrying amounts, and reduced significantly due to the IPO proceeds of EUR 850 million and the equity injection of our major shareholders. Further helped by our strong business development, our leverage ratio decreased to 2.8 times. You'll find the cap table on slide 45 in the appendix. We continue to strive for deleveraging and by focusing on strong, strict cost discipline and cash management, and by capitalizing our strength. Like this, we want to achieve a leverage of around two times. Ladies and gentlemen, with that, I will conclude the financial part of today's presentation. Thanks for your attention so far, and back to you, Sander.
Thank you, Mark. Yes, to wrap up, or to conclude, sorry, on our presentation, I want to give you a brief update on our strategic, some of our strategic initiatives. But before I do that, I first want to acknowledge an important moment for our company, and also a moment where we are basically giving our respect and appreciation to Willem Duthler, who has been—who's going to leave the Douglas Group in September this year, after more than 25 years, very successful years with the group.
Many of those years, 19 of those years, Willem has been responsible, first for the Netherlands, but today we talk about BeNe, Belgium, the Netherlands, and he, together with his team, has done a great job in establishing market leadership in Holland and starting to build basically a foothold in the Belgium market as well. So thank you for that, Willem, and we wish you all the best, let's say, going forward. I'm also happy to share that we have found a very good successor for Willem. So as of Monday, this week, Sebastiaan de Jong has started.
Let's say we have an onboarding program, so in the next few weeks, he will work in different stores in Holland and Belgium, but also spend time with many people across the group to take over the baton of Willem in the middle of September. Sebastiaan brings 25 years of international experience in retail, so he worked for Ahold Albert Heijn, he worked for Etos, as the CEO of Etos, the number two drugstore in the Netherlands. He also worked into the do-it-yourself domain, and has been working across different European markets throughout his career. So thank you, Willem, and we wish Sebastiaan, clearly, all the best in the continuing the growth story of Douglas in Belgium and the Netherlands.
On page 24, you see again our, or again, you haven't seen it today, but we've shown this in presentations to you before. You see basically the translation of our Let It Bloom strategy in our four key strategic pillars, and for each of those pillars, we have initiatives in place, and today we want to give you an update on brand communication, corporate brands, and network developments. Starting with network development, this is about developing our store network on page 25. So as I already said, and Mark was building on that, that's going well. So, the network growth is according to plan. Our stationary business remains a key pillar. It is still almost 70% of our sales, but also a key pillar in driving growth, with a 7%+ top line in this quarter.
We are very happy to see that we have very, very significant growth numbers in terms of visitors. So 16.9% more people visiting our stores. There are a lot of retailers who cannot claim those numbers, but we also have reported or registered 8.1% more customers. So a visitor is somebody entering the store, a customer is somebody who bought something. So you can see that the conversion is slightly down, but that in itself I don't think is a bad thing, because it demonstrates that we are an appealing location to go to, to orientate yourself, and to either make the transaction in the store, or maybe after you have smelt or tested the product, you go home and you order it online.
We are well on track to achieve our target of 200+ net store openings by the end of 2026, and well on track to deliver 400+ refurbishment by the end of 2026. We have now opened in CEE, 21 stores, so that is by far our fastest growing in terms of store network development, but by the way, also in terms of sales region. We have rebranded almost all our so-called Beauty Zone stores in Bulgaria. So Bulgaria is a relatively small country, but we have a very strong position, and as a result of an acquisition, we still were operating Beauty Zone. That's a different brand stores, which we have now converted all into Douglas stores, and each of them are doing very, very well.
But also upcoming openings in Leuven, that is in Belgium, Flemish part of Belgium. So this Friday, this week, we're gonna open the second store in Belgium, and before the year end, the year end ends by the end of September, we'll open store three and store four as well. So the Belgium pipeline is now well filled, not only for this year, but also for the next two years. But also in Zagreb, we're gonna open a flagship store. In Hamburg, we're gonna open a flagship store, in France, in Czech. These are just some examples of openings which are in the pipeline, basically for the next six weeks. The refurbishment program is well on the, let's say, well on track.
We have a significant focus on France, Germany, and Italy, but also in other markets like the Netherlands or Poland, we are doing refurbishments, and that is really going to accelerate, let's say, the like-for-like growth in the near future, because one year after those refurbishments, these stores are starting to contribute to like-for-like as well. I've already been talking about the successful reopening of our House of Beauty in Vienna. So year to date, we have opened 38 stores gross, and we've refurbished 39, significant numbers to follow in the fourth quarter.
Then if you divide that by the 1,800, let's say 50 stores, which we have in total, you can see that, almost 10% of our stores will be new or renewed, and you will see that by the end of this year, financial year, and that is really a, I would say, a good percentage. The second strategic initiatives is, I want to give you a brief update on corporate brands. So corporate brands, just to refresh your memory, why do you have a corporate brand? Because that brings something unique to the format, because the competition doesn't have Douglas Collection, doesn't have one.two.free!, doesn't have Dr. Susanne von Schmiedeberg, and does not have the Jardin Bohème brand. These are our four, let's say, corporate Douglas brands.
Also, not only differentiating ourselves, but also enhancing the bottom line, because we make a higher EBITDA on corporate brands, versus what we would make on the branded, let's say alternatives. We have recently started, for the first time ever, with a brand campaign to basically elevate and position and push the Douglas Collection, and the title of the campaign is, If You Know, You Know, which we have also nicely abbreviated. So this is a 360-degree campaign, where we basically are using it in all the touch points with our customers, to basically position this value proposition to especially young and social media savvy customers.
In addition to that, we are launching new product lines in the Douglas Home Spa range with the Wild Forest Lodge, and we've also recently launched a new proposition, Douglas branded proposition, which is Douglas Blossom, which is more a value for money bath care range, with very promising initial results. The third initiative, omni-channel, is not only about developing our store network, but it's also about developing, let's say, the digital interface of Douglas. We have started with the redesign of our website, our online shop, and our Douglas app. We want to make sure that also the digital interface is enhancing our premium brand positioning, our premium beauty brand positioning, across all channels and countries.
We want to make sure that the positioning of a Douglas store in Vienna is very much in sync with the positioning of the Douglas website, let's say in Austria. The rollout of the premium redesign has started in September, will start in September 2024, and it will occur in different waves across all major countries and online channels. With the ambition to enhance our brand recognition, to create a more uniform identity, to create this premium appeal, and also create an emotional engagement and an inspiring beauty experience for our customers, hence further integrating and facilitating the omni-channel offering.
So the website should not only provide a point of entry to the online shop, but also we're going to use the website to better that you can better find where is the brick-and-mortar store located, to make a beauty booking in the future. So basically to create cross-fertilization between the different channels. And last but not least, we are historically quite a, I would say, local for local organized company. So the look and feel of our website across our 21 different Douglas markets is still not always as consistent as possible. So we want to further standardize our website to create a more consistent brand image, but also to create economies and efficiencies from a cost perspective.
Last but not least, once a customer has moved, not only to the website, but even more importantly, has downloaded the app, that is kind of the holy grail for us, because the customers who are doing that are really becoming loyal, let's say to the Douglas, let's say, omni-channel platform. As you can see, we have the enormous growth numbers of sales driven by the app with 22.7% in the recent quarter. And then on the next page, you see some visuals of our truly beauty, truly premium kind of ambition. And you will start seeing the rollout in different tranches and different phases, as I said, as of September this year, first in the German area, but quite quickly in other markets as well.
So with that, we are coming to an end of our presentation on, on the final page, the summary page. So in summary, the third quarter, we have again demonstrated a sustained positive business development with strong overall results. Also, year to date, in the first nine months, our results are well ahead of previous years, both in terms of top line sales, bottom line, EBITDA, and also in terms of cash flow. And, as Mark has already pre-presented in the pro forma, once, the benefits of the IPO or the refinancing are fully flowing into the numbers, you will also see that significantly improving going forwards. Omni-channel is the way to go. We believe that the combination of both stores and e-com is the future.
We're developing well in both individual channels, but also in the combination, and we're growing organically. Then we have a very clear strategic focus on core business, on our core business, premium beauty. And as a result of that, we have disposed Disapo, and we're taking further steps to refine and sharpen our beauty positioning. So the implementation of our Let It Bloom is well on track. To conclude on our guidance, the Douglas Group confirms the guidance for the midterm. The midterm guidance is a sales CAGR of 7% growth going forward, and we will move towards an EBITDA of 18.5% adjusted EBITDA in the midterm. However, for this year, the current financial year, we've increased our sales guidance from around seven to around 8.5.
Let's say for the first nine months, we are well on track. So we are going to deliver on that guidance by the end of this financial year. With that, we are concluding on our presentation, and we are now opening up for Q&A. Operator?
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handset while asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Monique Pollard with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hello. Morning, everyone. I just had a couple of questions, please. The first one was on the other operating income. I'm just trying to understand what we should think of as being the factors contributing to the growth in that, other than the supplier bonuses. You know, if I look at it this quarter, it's up 12%. I guess, you know, year to date, it's flat, it's been flat. I know you'd mentioned that supplier bonuses have grown in line with sales, but just wondering if there are any other factors and how we should think about that other operating income going forward? And the second question was just on the store expansion program in CEE. As you mentioned, that is temporarily dampening the EBIT margins.
I mean, obviously, they're acknowledging that the EBITDA margins there are still sort of materially above other regions. But I just wanted to get a sense, if you could, of how much that store expansion is dampening the margins or where the normalized margin would be in that region at the moment, if it weren't for that. Thank you very much.
Yeah, maybe I take this question, and Sander, please feel free to add, especially on the CEE perspective. So, Monique, I think you pointed out the key point to that one. We are focusing our capital allocation, particularly in a region where we see in terms of customer demand and structural profitability, the greatest opportunities for the group. And already the historical, stronger margin contribution of this region is one of the factors that we are focusing on that one. Clearly, the step up in number of refurbishments, so and sometimes these are just purely for technical reasons. If we have to close down the store for a couple of weeks because we introduce new concepts, well, you might get some contribution from landlords or allocate staff.
Sometimes we're able to do that to other stores, but clearly during this period, you will have a sales miss, and, well, some of your costs continue to develop. As we indicated on previous occasion, refurbishments in general, but particularly in the Central Eastern Europe, have one of the shortest payback periods. So, despite the short-term dampening factor that we had to highlight or we highlighted in the third quarter, we're absolutely confident that both on the refurbishment and the new openings, these are accretive to the historic profitability to the region. Please understand that we do not provide margin guidance by segment. We do provide guidance on a group level.
Sander reiterated our progress to our midterm target of 18.5, and I can assure you the relative share growth of Central Eastern Europe, so there's a mix effect, but also the underlying improvement from refurbishments and the new stores, will be accretive to the group average. On the other operating income, well, we don't provide, on this line, for specific guidance because there's a multiple, fluctuating elements. I think, for this specific quarter, Marcel, we had some relief of provisions, which we also reflected to that one. So to some degree, Monique, that's less plannable, but there's, we do not provide guidance on the other income line. That is, completely embedded in the overall guidance from the group.
Okay, that's clear. Thank you.
Okay, maybe in the end, because we have quite a number of participants, maybe we start with two questions, Monique, and if there's anything left unanswered, please, we will be ready to take a question at a later stage. Otherwise, I suggest, operator, we pass on to Mia from BNP.
Thank you. The next question is from Mia Strauss with BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to maybe talk about current trading and what exit rate you're sort of seeing in June. And then secondly, just on the overall beauty market, what dynamics are we seeing? What is customer sentiment looking like across the markets? Because I think it's similar to Q2, where you were seeing basket sizes, lower basket sizes but higher prices. So maybe if you could just talk about the overall consumer sentiment we're seeing, and if there are any other factors that are contributing towards this. Thank you.
Mark, maybe I should take the second question, and you take the first one?
Yeah, the first one is easy because, as always, at this point in time, we will not be providing guidance on the final quarter to the fiscal year. As you have seen, Mia, and I think, I think that's already a strong signal, we have increased our full year guidance mid of July. We are reconfirming the increase to around 18.5%. If you do the math, I think the consequence to that one that we have, we don't see any fundamental change in the trading trends into the fourth quarter, but we will not provide further quantification on the current trading. But, Sander, please maybe frame it with what - how we see the customer segment, sentiment overall.
Well, you just said the first one is easy, so assumes that the second one is more difficult.
As always, I take the easy ones.
Difficult to you.
Give it a try.
So first of all, many of you are following all the beauty and luxury players, and I think it's quite obvious that from a global perspective, the beauty and the luxury market, or the premium beauty and luxury markets is, is starting to slow down in terms of growth. So other branded suppliers, but the retailers have also reported on that. However, within that slowdown, we see that Europe is doing still relatively well. Certainly China is bringing the, the world down, but, but Europe is actually ahead of the, I would say, the global trend. And we are fortunate fact that we operate only in Europe, and within Europe, we're also expecting a slowdown on growth in premium beauty, but that slowdown is actually less than what we had anticipated originally.
What we clearly see is that the inflationary environment has rapidly changed. That's not only in premium beauty, that's happening everywhere across Europe, but there's a lot less inflation, beauty inflation, in the market. Despite that, we have reported 7%+, and we are quite confident. I think the operator should be on-
No, Mia, maybe you mute your lines, otherwise there's a bit of background noise. Thank you.
Okay, so, the market is in that sense, relatively favorable. And I'm also quite positive, not only about the quarter or the quarter ahead of us, but we still believe that going forward for the next three to five years, that our premium beauty market in Europe will continue to grow 5%-6%. And being the biggest retailer there, we clearly want to do a bit more, so because we want to continue to gain share. That's what I wanted to say on the market. With that, we wanted to move to the next question.
From UBS.
Yeah. Sreedhar, go ahead.
The next question is from Sreedhar Mahamkali with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Well, I had a couple, but I think those were already asked. But maybe just to go back to Monique's question on CEE. So excuse the background noise, I'm on an airport. The question really in my mind is, clearly this segment is going to see quite a lot of growth over the coming years. How should we think about this dampening effect? How temporary should it be? Should we continue to notice in the next couple of quarters, or should that start to disappear pretty quickly? That's the first one. Just again, maybe reassure us on the CEE segment, structurally, there is no change in the sort of profitability outlook? Thank you.
Yeah. Well, let me phrase this maybe slightly differently than I said earlier. So yes, compared to Q3 last year, there was a slight dampening factor in the C segment in the loan. But if you compare quarter after quarter, and that's basically what we strive to achieve, we have seen healthy, I think, 40 basis points expansion, on the quarter versus last year, on the year-to-date base. So what we strive to achieve, Sreedhar, is that, while we will actually slightly accelerate the impact from refurbishment and new openings, please recall, we are planning to add net 200 stores to our network. The dampening factors from temporary closures on refurbishment or the ramp up, dilutive impact, will play a role also on future quarters, so that's likely to happen.
But this will be increasingly compensated as the stores that we just opened this quarter for the last six months will clearly step up, so they will become increasingly in line and accretive. Don't forget that we are also delivering strongly on a like-for-like base. As I said earlier, we will not provide a specific breakdown on structural profitability guidance by segments, but I do overall, I hold the belief that we will continue to improve across all major segments, also with smaller ones like perfumeries, where we've seen more significant improvements, that all operational segments will contribute to that one. Last but not least, the corporate overhead.
I mean, it's not as stated, but if you bridge now the sum of the segments to the group results, we expect also operating leverage as we translate a top line growth of around 7%. Cost development and headquarter should be accretive to the market expansion on the midterm. So we are, if you look at consensus at the company guidance, the company is already very close to its targeted structural profitability level of 18.5. Clearly, around means that we can also be above that, and clearly we have ambitions to grow that. But this will be driven also by the profitable full year impact, a run rate impact of new stores and refurbishments.
But there will be quarters like we have seen it maybe more extensively for the CE quarter, where we might have a slight decrease on a quarter by quarter if there's a sizable new opening or refurbishment happening in the three quarters that we'll report on.
Got you. Thank you.
Mark, to add to that, because if you look at Germany, for instance, where we have reported 9.9%, at least for the DACH segment. Today, we have 16 stores in Germany which are under construction. That is not a secret, because the customers can see that. And these 16 stores are either closed or semi-closed and impacting the sales numbers. And despite that, I mean, impacting it negatively for the short, and despite that, we can report good numbers, I would say, for the full segment. So our ability, I would say, to absorb those elements in the short term, certainly with refurbishment, is, I would say, well proven.
New store openings, if you open 10 new stores in one quarter in a country with 130 stores, that's really gonna have a dilutive effect in that specific quarter. But those stores are quite quickly ramping up. And if you don't do it in the following quarter, if you only open 2 stores, yeah, that creates a swing factor between two quarters. But systemically, this is actually healthy, because it's all strengthening the growth and the cash flow generation of the company going forward, like, for the future. Okay, I think we would like to move to Adam.
Next question is from Adam Cochrane, Deutsche Bank.
Good morning. Thanks, guys. Two questions from me. Firstly, you talked about the relaunch of the website and the app with the ambition of, it sounds like, highlighting the premium or more premium nature of the product and of the offering. But at the same time, you seem to be talking about the customers in certain markets becoming more price sensitive. How are you gonna balance sort of showing a more premium offer at the same time as trying to cater to these customers who are wanting or seemingly want a more value for money offer on that front? How do you just make sure you don't alienate those customers? And then secondly, what is the benefit of price increases within the sales growth in the quarter?
Are your price increases just covering what your suppliers are passing on to you, or are you able to recoup a little bit of the increase in Douglas's operating costs, personnel costs, et cetera, within the price increases above and beyond what your suppliers are giving you? Thanks.
So, maybe I should take the first question, and you take the second question, Mark.
Right.
So, clearly, it's a good question, Adam. And when we say more premium, that does not mean that it's that we are completely moving to the luxury part, I would say of the market. So clearly, we need to find the right balance. But secondly, it's all about pricing. So let's give you an example. Chanel is a very premium brand. I don't think there's any discussion about that, but you need to make sure as a retailer, that you sell it for the right competitive price.
So, while we are enhancing the premiumness of our website and the premiumness of our communication, we want to remain competitive, let's say from a pricing perspective. And when I say pricing, I should say pricing, but also promotion. We need to make sure that we have the proper balance between that. But it's a balance, it's a balancing act. It's partly a science and partly an art, which we are playing here.
Yeah, well, let me rephrase what we said already during the call. We differentiated slightly, and I think you referred to that, but price increases vary in its effectiveness slightly by segments. Price sensitivity and behavior of consumers might play a role. But in general, it's a very consistent picture across the globe. Typically, price increases from the beauty industry are happening on a calendar base, most of them on January 1st, where this is where typically new price lists are being distributed to retail partners, not only on the resale prices, but also on the recommended retail price. And there's a lot of intelligence also from our brand partners, where they see pricing opportunities, because ultimately, the consumer needs to accept that. So this is a well-established practice.
You remember there were kind of like concerns in a high inflationary environment, where price increases were not on a typical historical level of around 5%, but high single-digit, even double-digit. Whether consumers will accept these price increases, whether they will downtrade, that we had to perform, I think at least 4 or 6 quarters discussion with investors and bondholders, whether there's a down trading slippage on certain categories. Well, what has been proven throughout this period that premium beauty is different. People are sticking with premium brands. They're sticking to the sizes, so there's not a downtrending from 100 ml- 75 ml. And they're still interested across all four categories.
I think there was an important chart that Sander spoke about that we see that hair care as a fourth category is now increasingly also turning itself into a selective premium retail category. So we're quite confident that price insensitivity remains an important factor. Nevertheless, especially with the introduction of brands like Elf, Sol de Janeiro, this has indirectly a dampening factor. It's not that we're selling Sol de Janeiro at lower prices, but these younger brands are one of the factors, for example, why we see in Italy a lower value per basket. That's not because prices on Chanel are getting lower, but we have just a disproportionate success with brands like Elf and Sol de Janeiro, which we like. It's rejuvenating the brand, but it also underscores that we have the ability to pass on price increases.
There's a second component to that, Adam, that we also refer to. It's not only the, well, increasing the recommended retail price, but we have invested a lot of effort already, and we will continue to do so on our pricing promotion strategy as part of Let It Bloom. We're starting to harvest first impacts for that one, that we are becoming also using data analytic tools to become even more effective in where we do need to apply attractive price or promotion offering, and on which articles, because it's an exclusive brand, it's a brand that we carry only is available at Douglas. Where we clearly also have different pricing opportunities in comparison to a brand that might be also widely distributed via less selective distribution channels.
So it's a combination of multiple factors, but the plain vanilla price increase impact from brands, which by the way, in Q3, is a smaller factor because most, as I said, most price increases already happened in January. But we continue to be able to pass on these price increases into the third quarter, and that's what we highlighted as part of our presentation today.
Thank you.
Thanks, Adam.
The next question is from Jürgen Kolb, with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much indeed. Two questions. First one, which is, in part, picking up the previous question on the pricing situation. On corporate brands, in those markets where you see consumers may be a little bit hesitant to shop or the conversion might decline, do you see your private label share growing stronger than you may have initially expected? And where is the share right now as a general view?
That's the first one. And the second one, on the price cam- or sorry, on the marketing campaign, the 360-degree campaign, does that have any impact on the marketing expense ratio that you forecast for the full year? Or is that already, you know, fully embedded in your planning? Of course it is, but just as a percent of cost of sales, I was wondering here. And from that. Yeah, that's it for the time being. Thanks.
Maybe I shall say, I shall take the two questions, Mark, and if you want to add something, feel free to do so. So first of all, Jürgen, I know that quite a lot of retailers are reporting significant growth numbers in corporate brands, because in other retail channels, customers are trading down from the Coca-Colas and maybe L'Oréal, Elvive in a drugstore, to the private labels of EDEKA or Albert Heijn or Rossmann. That type of trading down, we don't see in premium beauty. So the flip side of that, it's not that the corporate brand is now accelerating, let's say, because of, let's say, the economic environment. We do see that our corporate brand, let's say, share, has developed positively over the longer term.
We're not disclosing. I'm also looking to Mark, the, let's say, the corporate brand share, if I'm correct. We want to grow the corporate brand share. I can disclose, by the way, that it's. We're not talking about 15 or 20 or 30% of our sales. It's a smaller number than that, and it's also not our ambition to grow it to the percentages I was just alluding to. Because ultimately this business is very much about brands, and corporate brands in our case is, by the way, four brands. One is carrying the Douglas name, and the other are basically exclusive names, which we own. In terms of marketing, the marketing campaign which I was talking about is already embedded, let's say, in the guidance which we've given.
Strategically, we and for the short, the mid, and the long term, we actually want to spend more money on, let's say, brand building and brand equity development. So in the longer run, we would like to grow, let's say, our marketing spend, but that should not come being funded by, let's say, less EBITDA. That should be funded by smarter pricing and promotion, tactics and strategies Marco was already alluding to. So we would like to shift some of the promo euros or pricing euros into structurally brand, brand building once the brand or the category or the market allows us to do so. But all of this is embedded in our guidance for the short term, and it's also embedded in our plans for the short and the midterm.
Got it. Thanks very much, guys.
Thanks a lot. In your-
Okay.
Operator?
Mr. Sander, there are no more questions registered at this time.
Okay. Well, that is great because then we have spent an hour and one minute on providing an update on the third quarter. To conclude, Douglas, the Douglas Group is in good shape, and we have delivered, I would say, strong and healthy numbers throughout the quarter. The strategy is in place. Our purpose is to make life more beautiful. We'll continue to do that, and we hope to see you, let's say in three months from now, to report on the financial, the full financial year results. And, I wish you all-
Mid of December.
Oh, sorry, but the-
It's a year-end close, and we were-
Take a few weeks, extra weeks. Anyway, it will be before Christmas.
Yes.
Thank you very much and have a great day.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the-