Okay, thank you very much. Yes, this is Stefan speaking. I'm here in the room together with Jasper Eenhorst, our CFO, and we want to welcome all of you to Shop Apotheke's release of our Q1 2020 financials. We're going to share with you the results of a certainly very busy quarter for Shop Apotheke, but also a truly exceptional quarter, and the one aspect that you probably from the financial community are especially interested in, the improvement of our profitability versus Q1 2020, we're certainly going to focus on. We're going to start with a review of Shop Apotheke's financial performance in the first quarter. Jasper and me are going to take you through this, followed by a short strategy update before Jasper then shares with you the outlook for 2020.
And then, of course, Jasper and I, we're both looking forward to answering your questions once we're through with our presentation. Okay, before we delve into our Q1 results, let me give you a quick update on the Corona situation. Nothing has changed drastically from the last time we shared this with you. Throughout mid-May, we're seeing an elevated level of orders and sales. So this was not a one-time event in the second half of March. And we are, compared to our original plan for 2020, also in April, also in May, we are ahead of our original projections. In terms of the supply chain situation, you remember last time we talked about some constraints and challenges that we're facing. I'm glad to report to you that the supply chain situation has improved significantly.
This includes critical Corona-related or Corona-specific products such as disinfectants and protective wear like face masks. They're now available in our webshop, and just as an anecdote, just this week, we removed actually the purchase constraints for our customers for disinfectants. Again, just an indication that the supply situation has improved significantly indeed. As of today, for the foreseeable future, we don't predict any serious supply chain problems. In other words, we are back to the normal of the pre-Corona situation, but keep in mind, the normal of the pre-Corona situation still included some supply constraints for selected Rx products, but again, nothing related to the Corona situation. As conveyed to you before, especially in the second half of March, we significantly reduced our online and performance marketing investment in order to limit the number of incoming orders to a manageable level.
I'm glad to report to you that we shared this with you in the past. We succeeded in increasing the capacity in our logistics facility. And as of today, we have been able to execute all the orders that we have received from our customers. In April and in May, we restarted our investments in new customer acquisition. And of course, as a result of this, we see an increase in new customers coming to Shop Apotheke again. Over the last two and a half months, we have closely monitored internally the situation. The Corona-related hygiene standards have been tightened, have been heightened significantly. Our Corona task force, led by one of the co-founders of Shop Apotheke, Robert Hess, is still in place. They meet daily and, if necessary, several times a day. We continue to adjust our internal standards.
As a result of all of these efforts, I'm very happy to report to you that over the last two and a half months, knock on wood, we haven't had any interruptions in our pharmacy and fulfillment processes and operations. Needless to say, but we should keep this in mind, this is an unprecedented situation with a very high degree of uncertainty. Everything we are going to share with you today, especially any statements about the coming months and the remainder of the year, should be seen against the backdrop of this high degree of uncertainty. So let's switch to some of the highlights for Q1 before I hand it over to Jasper, who's going to provide more insights to you. We already told you that we had a very strong start into 2020.
Revenues in the first quarter compared to Q1 2019 were up by 33% and reached 232 million EUR. Of course, fully organic, interesting, and important for us also against the backdrop of the preparation for the introduction of electronic prescriptions in Germany. Our Rx sales were up by a healthy 23% and reached 55 million EUR in the first quarter. Gross profit actually grew at an even faster pace, I dare to say. They jumped by 53% to basically 50 million EUR. The margin improved by almost three percentage points to 21.5%. The main drivers, and again, Jasper is going to share more details, are improved sourcing conditions as well as better net pricing. And again, the emphasis here is on the net. And again, Jasper will talk more about this.
Most importantly, and well ahead of our internal plans, was the improvement of our profitability here reflected as the adjusted EBITDA results. Last year, the EBITDA loss amounted to around nine million EUR, a loss of nine million EUR in Q1 2020. We generated an adjusted EBITDA of basically five million EUR. The margin as a result of this improved from minus 5.2% to 2.1%. Again, a big accomplishment. And we want to mention here, and you're going to hear more about this in a moment, this was Corona had an effect, it's reflected in this, but it was not even the major driver of the improvements. The improvement in our profitability at the EBITDA level cascaded through our financial statement, also reflected here in a very healthy operating cash flow.
The improvement for this prior year from -EUR 2.3 million to EUR 12.2 million, EUR 14.5 million improvement, even stronger than the EBITDA improvement. Last but certainly not least, we did another important step. We reached a milestone on our roadmap to evolve towards a customer-centric e-pharmacy platform. In March, we started our cooperation with Zava, one of the leading online doctor services in Europe. As a result of this, our customer through our website can now obtain a medical consultation from Zava for right now around 30 medical indications. Again, an important milestone for us on our roadmap towards becoming a customer-centric e-pharmacy platform. Just taking another snapshot at sales, we already talked about the improvement versus Q1 2019.
For those of you, and I think that all of you who are closely following our performance over the years, you know that Q4 and Q1 are traditionally the strongest quarters. We also posted a very significant gain versus Q4 2019. And I want to emphasize that actually the majority of this growth came from planned organic growth. And then almost like the icing on the cake, even though it was a large icing, came then from the Corona situation, which really materialized in the second half of March only. The sales growth, 'cause, is also reflected in our growth of active customers, which jumped by a quarter from 4 million in December 2019 to 5 million, excuse me, from 4 million in March 2019 to 5 million by the end of March this year.
If you compare this to December 2019, we saw an increase of active customers by around 300,000. Talking about our customers and looking at customer KPIs, we are saying here our customers are highly satisfied. We are proud of this, and we are very proud that this continued despite the Corona surge and some extended delivery times that we had in the second half of March. Just a couple of highlights, the number of orders from returning from existing customers remained above 80%. We had a healthy average basket value of 65 EUR. Our loyalty program, RedPoints, is very successful. I'm going to talk more about this later. And then to put it all together, what do customers think about Shop Apotheke? How do they experience their end-to-end customer journey reflected here in the NPS score? It remained at 70.
70 itself is already a very healthy KPI, a very healthy score. But again, despite the extended delivery times towards the end of March, we were in a position to remain at this strong level of 70. Okay, so looking at traffic through our website and through our app, you see here, of course, a very significant growth. No surprise, we reached a new high with over 44 million visits. In Q1, there's a 10 million, that's an increase by 10 million visits, both versus Q1 2019, but as well versus Q4 2019, and last chart before I hand over to Jasper to walk you through the details of the financials, you see here the number of orders. We already mentioned share of repeat orders pretty much at the levels in Q3 and Q4 last year, above 80.
We reached an all-time high with almost 4.2 million customer orders in Q1. The orders increased at a faster pace, especially in comparison to Q4 than sales because non-Rx sales, OTC sales, beauty and personal care products grew at a faster pace than Rx sales, and as you know, Rx sales have an average basket value, so again, orders grew at a faster pace, especially in comparison to Q4 than sales itself, and with this, I'll hand it over to Jasper to share with you some, I think, exceptional insights into our Q1 financial performance.
Thank you, Stefan. Happy to do so indeed. On this page, we see all key P&L numbers and margins. First, this quarter versus the same first quarter of last year, and then this quarter versus past quarter four. I will discuss everything from sales up to and including the adjusted EBITDA margin.
Before I start, in general, I think it's important to take into account when looking at these variances that last year's quarter one, that the EBITDA margin was significantly low in Q1 2019, and there were actually two reasons for that. Number one is the deliberate choice back then to really invest in growth. Actually, it was a very successful decision because our 2019 organic growth was very strong, as you all know. This led in the first quarter of 2019 to a low EBIT margin. At the same time, last year back then, also the operational cost performance was not really strong, and we are cycling this now.
These two items, and then actually together with the fact that in the current year's quarter, there was a benefit, a net benefit from the Corona situations, from the Corona situations. These two items, these two contexts, they explain a certain amount of the magnitude of the variances. However, this leaves alone that, which is, I think, more important if you strike those out, and I get back to that in the next charts with bridges. It's important that we see significant underlying structural improvements, excluding those two impacts. Okay, to start with sales, as Stefan already mentioned two times, our sales increased by 33%, but it was also up 21% versus the strong fourth quarter of last year. The gross profit margin ended at 21.5%. 2.5 percentage points better than the same quarter last year, but also 1.6 percentage points better than the fourth quarter.
As I mentioned already, on the next slide, I will share some details on the variances. Then to the selling and distribution expenses, this is in the case of Shop Apotheke, actually everything between the gross profit and the administrative cost. It ended at 16.9% of net sales, which was 4 percentage points better than over the same period last year, and 0.8 percentage points better than our already strong fourth quarter of last year. Ad spend at 2.5% of sales, better than last year as a percentage of sales and better than the most recent quarter. This all boils down to an adjusted EBITDA that was close to EUR 5 million positive, EUR 40 million better than the year before, and EUR 7 million better than last quarter four. The adjusted EBITDA margin is 2.1% positive.
And as you can see, the adjustments in total were 1 million here, and there was nothing exceptional in here. It was roughly half related to the employee stock option program and roughly half related to cost related to the new facility Venlo 2020. Gross margin. The gross margin from 18.7% in 2019 to 21.5% achieved in the current quarter. To start with sourcing, 0.9%. I think it's important when we talk about sourcing that it is not only the direct conditions of prices that improved, but we achieved here a lot in our partnerships with our suppliers and our wholesalers. So in the total mix of sourcing, we see a positive structural benefit in our profitability there. Then there is an important 1.1 percentage points, which is improved pricing and cross-selling strategies that were successful.
And then there is also a significant remaining with other items where, for example, the transport cost from suppliers to us is, and there is also the benefit in this case from the mix of countries. All in all, significant improvement with some impact from Corona. I get back to that later, but more important is the underlying structural improvement. Then if we go to the cost, the selling and distribution cost as a percentage of sales, which includes in the case of Shop Apotheke, the marketing expenses, an improvement from 20.9% of sales to 16.9%, as I mentioned already, a 4 percentage points improvement. And the majority in this case came from marketing.
I think it's fair to say that roughly 50% of this relates to the fact that we had virtually no marketing in the second half of March, and roughly 50% is due to increased marketing efficiency as well as cycling high efficiency last year. The other item important to mention on this slide is the improvement of operational leverage. In continuation of the fourth quarter, we see a better operational efficiency. This is because we do more sales from the same facility. But you also see that the program that is named internally continuous improvement is really making significant structural improvements. And lastly, as I mentioned already, we're also cycling in this case a quarter last year that was from the operational efficiency perspective, not very strong. The next slide, actually, we discussed this already, but we included it nevertheless because we're proud of it.
We have not a 0.2 or a 0.3 adjusted EBITDA margin in quarter one. We have a solid positive adjusted EBITDA margin in quarter one, which was better than the same period last year and which was better than the fourth quarter of 2019. Now, one slide back there, please. Yes. Thank you. The last one on bridges related to the P&L from last year to this year. I think before going into any details, I want to share with you the main message that I want to bring across looking at this slide. Also, without Corona, our adjusted EBITDA margin would have been break-even in the first quarter. We know that because January and February and the first week of March, those numbers were break-even, and there was no impact of Corona in that case. Corona had not yet arrived in Europe.
Then in the last weeks of March, we had a benefit from Corona. We had a better gross profit margin. We had fewer vouchers. We reduced our marketing while demand was very high and our operations remained stable and got to a new level of capacity, so that all helps. But the main message here is also without Corona, we would have had a break-even Adjusted EBITDA margin in the first quarter of this year. Sourcing improvements we talked about already, which is year over year having an impact. The operational performance we talked about already and perhaps the title of economies of scale does not totally reflect what's in this box because it is indeed economies of scale, but it's also increased efficiency specifically in marketing. And the real fact of having economies of scale is also having an important explanation in this record.
We did more sales than we expected that we could do, and we did it at the same fixed cost. So cash flow, very important, I think to everybody, but also to me specifically. We started the year already with more than EUR 100 million in cash and cash equivalents. But in this first quarter, we actually achieved also an operating cash flow that was positive EUR 12 million. This is, of course, reflective of the positive EBIT and EBITDA that we discussed already. And it's also because of favorable working capital movements. Don't immediately extrapolate this into the full year because at Shop Apotheke, we benefited from the fact that we had very high year-end balances of working capital. And that helps if you then enter the new quarter. But nevertheless, we achieved both a positive EBITDA and positive working capital variances. We invested in total EUR 10 million.
In the graph, it's netted with the movement in short-term financial investments, but it was a level of EUR 10 million, which is a level that we think is reflective of a normal quarter at Shop Apotheke. It consists of investments in the new facility and general PP&E. Then, of course, importantly, also in our IT. With this, we ended the quarter with EUR 111 million of cash and cash equivalents. After the quarter, in April, actually, we had a successful capital raise. You see that including the money from this capital raise, we have a cash balance of EUR 173 million. With that, I give it back to you, Stefan.
Okay. Thank you, Jasper. Quick strategy update.
Unfortunately, but I guess for obvious reasons, we had to cancel, or I should better say we had to defer our first capital markets day, which had originally been scheduled for June. We're going to get back with you with a date when we're actually going to host our first capital markets day. But the objective, the purpose of this capital markets day would have been to explain to you and to substantiate what it really means for Shop Apotheke to evolve from a pure e-pharmacy retailer, which at our core we are today, to becoming a true customer-centric e-pharmacy platform. What does this mean for our customers? How are the customers going to benefit from this, but also how is this going to contribute to Shop Apotheke's financial health in the future?
In lieu of having a capital markets day, a full-fledged capital markets day, we want to take advantage of these quarterly calls with you in order to report back to you quickly. How have we been doing? What progress have we made? Which milestones have we hit towards this customer-centric e-pharmacy platform? And there is something that we want to share with you today. And some of these themes are going to be with us over the coming months as well. We have already talked to you about the cooperation with Zava that commenced in March. This is one of the milestones towards our platform or one of the pieces of our platform strategy. We are now gaining experience. We're collecting data.
We want to understand what works for our customers, what doesn't work in order to be able to scale this up in the coming months and in the coming years. The rollout or the cooperation with Zava will be followed by our next expansion of our same-day delivery pilot. You might remember that last year in April, we started the same-day pilot in the Rhein-Ruhr area, basically from Cologne to Dortmund. Of course, we could satisfy the same-day orders from our location in Venlo. That is not true for other metropolitan areas in Germany and beyond. So as we now start expanding our same-day pilot on the left-hand side, you actually see the screen with the label Shop Apotheke Now.
As we now expand this to additional metropolitan areas in Germany, we're going to work together with a very limited number of local players in these metropolitan areas. Again, we're going to start with the expansion around the middle of this year. Own brands. You probably know that with the acquisition of nu3 in 2018, we acquired two attractive new brands, nu3 and Beavita. The same management team is now charged with developing our third own brand under the label of Redcare. In February, we introduced the first two products, a nasal spray, of course, fitting with the flu season and the flu and the cough and cold season. We introduced Redcare Paracetamol. Admittedly, this couldn't have come at a better time with the hype around paracetamol in connection with the Corona surge. So we had sufficient inventories of Redcare Paracetamol available.
Last week, we introduced the third product, Redcare Ibuprofen. And many more products are going to be introduced under the Redcare label until the end of this year and beyond 2020. Of course, own brands are a way to improve customer retention, but admittedly, we're also generating some very healthy and substantial margins with these own brands today. And of course, this is going to grow into the future. And last but certainly not least, another milestone we're going to hit this year is the launch of our marketplace. We had shared with you in the past. The purpose of the marketplace is to offer more healthcare-related products to our customers. So at least in the first phase, there won't be any cannibalization of the products that we sell out of our own inventory. There's additional product categories altogether. If I remember correctly, there will be 11-12 categories.
I've shared with you, to just make it a little bit more tangible with you some examples in the past, contact lenses, medical devices, high-end cosmetics, veterinary products. Again, altogether, 11-12 product categories. We're going to start in the second half of the year with a sizable number of merchants. We are talking to them right now. We're very close to signing the first merchants up. The interest is very high. I can share this much with you. We also decided deliberately that we would go with an established third-party technology platform. We are developing the website and the app in-house for good reason because we need to be able to respond very quickly to changing customer needs. Again, for the marketplace, we decided to go with a reliable, with an established technology. What are the benefits of all of these additional services?
Of course, all of these services, all of these offerings over time are going to contribute to our top-line growth. They're going to contribute to our bottom-line performance. More importantly, however, it's the compounding effect of all of these services. We know that the more services a customer uses, the higher the loyalty, the better from our vantage point, the performance of this customer reflected in a higher customer lifetime value. What does this mean? The more services a customer uses, the higher the customer lifetime, the higher the order frequency, the higher the basket values. Again, all of this is going to be reflected in Shop Apotheke's financial performance over the coming years as well. When we look at the data that we have collected to date with the additional "services" that we are offering today, the data clearly bears this out. I'll give you a couple of examples.
Customers that subscribe to our newsletter today, they have a higher customer lifetime value. Customers, and we're now talking really literally about millions that are participating in our RedPoints loyalty program, have a higher customer lifetime value. Customers who order both non-Rx and Rx products from Shop Apotheke have a significantly higher customer lifetime value. And of course, it's our job to give our customers more and more reasons to return to Shop Apotheke, to return to our e-pharmacy platform in the future. We're confident, starting with the online doctor service, with the marketplace and things that are going to happen in the future, that this will hold true for all of these services as well. Okay. Shifting gears just for a moment, quick update on e-prescriptions. Where are we with our preparations for the introduction of e-prescriptions in Germany?
I can start a little bit with the end in mind. Nothing has drastically changed since the last time we talked to you. Just this week, and that is really the only update I can share with you, we have received the draft specifications from the Gematik, the semi-governmental entity that's charged with developing and providing the technical infrastructure for electronic prescriptions. Just this week, we received the draft specifications. We have already reviewed them. It's pretty much what we had anticipated. No surprises there. We are now very confident that by the end of June, the technical specifications will indeed be finalized, meaning by the end of June, everybody, not just Shop Apotheke, everybody's going to know how these e-prescriptions are actually going to work from a technical point of view. Then the Gematik will have time in order to develop and to implement these technical solutions.
At the core, we're talking about the server. This will be a cloud-based solution that will store all of the e-prescriptions. So the physicians are going to upload these e-prescriptions, these data sets into the cloud. And the service providers, namely pharmacies, including Shop Apotheke, we're going to retrieve this information from the cloud. Based on everything that we have heard, that we have learned, we are confident that the cloud will be in place around the middle of next year. Then you probably remember an announcement from Gematik in January that there will be a central e-prescription app that will also be developed and introduced by the Gematik. Officially, we're hearing this will also be available around the middle of next year.
We think that's going to might move a little bit into the second half of 2021, but that's no obstacle for us, at least from our vantage point, and then in the second half of 2021, we're going to see a ramp-up. We're going to start receiving some e-prescriptions because the central app is not required. It's not the only way for a pharmacy to receive an electronic prescription from a customer, from a patient, so we're going to see some ramp-up, everybody, including Shop Apotheke. We're going to gain some experience. We're going to see what works, what doesn't work, and then we're going to get to January 2022, and that takes us back to the PDSG, the Patient Data Protection Act.
As you know, this includes a stipulation that physicians in Germany, in the vast majority of instances, will actually be obligated to issue prescriptions in an electronic format. Of course, the driver behind this is the intent to reap the benefits from this cornerstone of the digitization of the German healthcare system as quickly as possible. I can assure you, Shop Apotheke will be ready in the second half of 2021. We'll be ready for e-prescriptions just this week. We, as a management team, reviewed all of our projects and initiatives related to the introduction of e-prescriptions for Shop Apotheke to be ready. We are on track. We will be well prepared. And of course, our ambition is that we will take a disproportionate share of the significant opportunity presented by the introduction of electronic prescriptions.
And with this, I'm sure you want to know something about the outlook for the year. Jasper, please.
Yeah, thanks again, Stefan. So this is the last slide of our presentation before we go to the Q&A. On this slide, with comfort, we reconfirm our guidance for the current year, 2020, and actually raise our guidance on the Adjusted EBITDA to a slightly but directionally important, more positive direction. So in sum, sales will increase by at least 20%. Adjusted EBITDA is now expected to be a positive number, not only around zero. I think with the statement of sales to increase by at least 20%, I think that often questions relate to, hey, how will the momentum continue of demand?
But I think it's as important that we have proven in March that actually our capacity is greater than we anticipated ourselves before and that actually the achieved capacity is for us the new normal. So we also have the possibility to grow faster. However, the overall world remains volatile, and based upon the developments in the world and at us in the second quarter, it's now our intention to provide you with a fuller update on our 2020 guidance with the half-year report, and then to the longer-term guidance at the bottom of the page on our target profitability. Our Q4, and then today, the Q1 figures too, are there saying underpin that we are well on track to execute our strategy that we will foresee will lead to an EBIT in excess of 6% in the longer term. That's it. Let's go to the first question.
Okay, operator, so please open it up for questions.
Our first questioner.
Hi. Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Can you hear me?
Yes, not very clear, but we can. Yes.
Okay. Hi, Stefan and Jasper. Thanks, first of all, for improving reporting quality and the color on the Gematic's specifications and good job on going through the margin madness. A few questions, maybe one by one, if that's okay. Out of curiosity, at what kind of gross margins are you selling masks and gels or COVID products?
Jasper, you want to take this?
Above average margins.
Okay. All right. And then in terms of so looking into Q2, you probably have a better sales mix than last year in terms of gross margin, but you ramped up marketing. So I'm just wondering what you expect the net effect of that to be at the EBITDA level? Yeah.
The question relates to quarter two, yeah? Yes. Okay. If I understand you. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I have to refer back to the guidance that we're giving, that the full year number will be a positive number, and I don't want to be more specific on the second quarter. I think it's important that in the first quarter, we mentioned that a large extent of the numbers you saw there was above break-even on a structural basis. I think it's very important that we, as a company, it's not our ambition to end at one billion sales and with a very strong EBITDA margin. We are a growth company, and we want to go from one billion to two billion to three billion to five billion, so we will balance continuously growth and EBITDA margins.
And I think that me, as a CFO and also as a person, I like to be in and I want to be in a positive EBITDA margin area because then we are the owner of our own destiny, and we want to generate cash. That's important, but we also want to grow really fast. So actually, in Q2, we also started with some efficient marketing things that you might have seen. Marketing needs are relatively less expensive, relatively cheap in the second quarter. So we're investing in growth. And the guidance on EBITDA is that it's going to be a positive number for the whole year.
Okay. Thanks. Then on the free cash flow, is there in view a chance that your new warehouse will not suffice to match the volumes of orders you could see in Rx from 2022?
In other words, would there be a need for you to invest in, let's say, the current warehouse to perhaps be able to face a wave of orders in Rx?
Yeah. Olivier, this is Stefan. Once the new warehouse is fully upstream for the foreseeable future, and I'm talking about two to three years, we will have sufficient capacity. Once we get to 2022, 2023, there are other questions that we'll need to answer in the future. Will we be able to serve a customer, for example, in Palermo, in southern Italy, from Venlo? So again, once we have sufficient scale in a market like Italy, we need to relook at our overall distribution strategy. Again, for the foreseeable future, we're very confident that, number one, we're going to have enough capacity when the new location goes live.
And then through continuous improvement type initiatives, we'll be able to squeeze out additional capacity. There is no plan at this point of time to continue to use our existing facility. It's a very manual process. We want to reap the benefits from automation, from a much higher degree of automation in our new facility.
Okay. Understand. And then I know it was a subject that you raised. I forgot when exactly, but how do you think now about the possibility to change your name for customers?
That is something that we have communicated before. This is going to happen. Again, Shop Apotheke works really well in Germany, in Austria, and in Germany, but not in other markets. We want to have one brand. That is something we're going to start introducing perhaps towards the end of the year, but then over the coming years.
It's not going to be a big ban.
Okay. Fair enough. And then just two last ones. On Rx, can you tell us where your average?
Can you please make it one other question because we have also some others waiting?
Yeah. Understand. Yeah. So on Rx, can you tell us where your average basket is right now and whether you would be able to can you say whether the sort of inventory build-up in Rx we saw in March is over now or are customers ordering again?
So Olivier, of course, we saw a significant increase in the second half of March. We saw also a significant dip in April because patients just didn't go to the doctors. They had indeed, as you were assuming, they had stocked up already in March. Now in May, we're going to see a return to normal. I'm a perfect example.
I got all of my supplies in March, and next week, I'm going to see my doctor because I need the next supply.
And on the average basket, can you tell us where it is approximately on Rx?
No, it's significantly higher, of course, than the average, but we don't disclose the separate baskets.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next questioner.
Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. It's Uwe Schupp from Deutsche Bank. Two questions, please. Firstly, on the growth rate ex Corona in Q1 and secondly, on the stickiness of the customer, as much as you can tell. So firstly, on the growth ex Corona, it would be helpful, obviously, to give us some indication potentially what the growth in January and February roughly was so that we can better gauge the impact of Corona, obviously.
Again, in that context, obviously, thank you very much for the hint on the EBITDA guidance already that you gave. Then, secondly, as much as you can tell right now, how big is the stickiness really of your incremental customer base that you generated in the second half of March in terms of repeat orders? What can you say about that? Thank you very much.
The first one on growth, I think it's important that the search and orders of Corona were in three and a half weeks of March, and before there was no impact, so the growth before that was roughly between 25% and 30%.
That's very helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. Then the next one was on the stickiness of the new customers, huh?
Exactly.
Yeah. Perhaps we discussed it shortly this morning also, but I will repeat also for the others.
Of course, we don't know. I can only say that with all the years of experience and data that we look at at Shop Apotheke, we normally see a very strong correlation between a high NPS score and customers being loyal to us. One of the main impacts on the NPS score is that the order is on time. During Corona, our orders were not on time, but not surprisingly, we still got a very high NPS score of those customers. They were happy that we were able to deliver while some other websites were down or pharmacies could not be walked to because of social distancing. So the indication of a positive NPS is a good indicator that those customers will stay with us. But only the future can tell what happens after the social distancing is over. We are trying to give them the best experience possible.
Of course, we also try those customers to make a second order at this moment to become loyal customers, and as you might have seen also in April and May, actually, we're reaching out to new customers and until now successfully.
That's very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next questioner.
Hi. This is Olivier Calvet from Barclays. Two questions for me. First, can you give us some color on the product mix in April and May? How much of the basket is Corona-related products like disinfectants, and how much is more normal product? And secondly, can you give us a sense of how trading has been in April and May? You said it's strong, but if you can give any sense of the magnitude, that'd be very helpful.
Okay, so the product mix, I don't have this data in front of me.
We saw, of course, in the second half of May, typical product categories that boomed, that increased very, very significantly. I think we were coming back to more normal levels in April and May. And then, of course, in the second half of April, in the first half of May, we saw a very significant increase in the sale of disinfectants and protective wear like face masks. Yes, we have now stable supplies. Sales are at a very significant level. So there has been a little bit of a mixed shift. Some of this, I think, with protective wear as the regulations remain in place, as there are in many countries today, I think that's going to be with us at least for the foreseeable future. But we don't have any hard data in front of us right now talking about how the various product segments have shifted.
And then with the start of April, we've tried to be clear on that with the earnings release already that we actually say in April, and in the presentation, we say April until mid-May. So actually, until today, that we say that the momentum of the first quarter is largely continuing into the second quarter.
Thanks.
Thank you. Again, if you'd like to ask a question, that is star one, our next questioner.
Good morning, Andreas Riemann, Commerzbank. Two questions from my side. One is on Zava. Is it about loyalty on new customers? So the question is, is the idea that existing Shop Apotheke customers can use Zava services, or do you expect that Zava customers become new Shop Apotheke customers? Question one. Question two on competitive situation. Has it changed over the last month? Is the pricing more disciplined? Yeah. Any insight would be appreciated. Okay.
I'll start with the Zava. Andreas, why would Zava enter into this cooperation with us? Because admittedly, they want to access our 5 million active customers by the end of March. It's predominantly existing Shop Apotheke customers that are now through our website kind of portal, they are able to obtain a medical consultation from Zava. Of course, in the future, we are promoting this service now. We're also, I'm sure, going to gain some new customers, at least for the foreseeable future. I would say the bulk of this business will come from existing Shop Apotheke customers. Again, I'm a prime example. I've already obtained a medical consultation from Zava. And I was an existing customer. And then on the competitive situation, no major changes there. No.
Okay. Thanks. And congrats. Good result.
Thanks, Andreas.
Thank you. Again, that's star one to ask a question. Our next questioner.
Hello. It's Natasha Brilliant here from Citi. I had a couple of questions on the marketplace initiative. And I just wondered if you could give us a bit more color on the sort of take rates or revenue share and the economics of how that might work, and also just on the competitive position of the marketplace, whether any of your competitors offer something similar. That's the first question. The second question is on capacity. You said that you'd exceeded your expectations in terms of your capacity, but at a fixed cost base.
So I just wondered if you could give us some more color on whether you think there's any more headroom, any more capacity there at the same level of cost, or whether beyond this, costs would have to tick up a little bit.
So I'll take the first question. Jasper will take the second question. In terms of the marketplace, we're going to start the marketplace in the second half of this year. Again, this is a business that needs to be introduced, that needs to be scaled up. So we don't anticipate a major top or bottom line contribution from the marketplace this year. In the coming years, as we scale this business up, as more product categories are added, as more merchants are going to be added, of course, this will become a sizable part of our top line and of our bottom line.
It will make a contribution, but we have not disclosed what specific targets we're aiming for. In terms of the concept, yes, there is a difference to what some of our competitors are doing because in the initial phase, there is no intent on our side that we are going to replace any of the products we're going to sell out of our own inventory today. It's going to be a pure expansion of the product portfolio of healthcare-related products. I'm not sure I answered your question, so let me know if there is something else.
That's really helpful. Thank you.
Okay. And Natasha, and then on the capacity, of course, I can only answer that question if we assume that there hopefully will be no interruptions or other unforeseen circumstances.
Then the most concrete I can be from the capacity perspective, that actually our capacity is at least 12 times what we produced in March. That doesn't mean that we're going to sell everything because that's number two that we also need. But your question was related to the capacity, what we achieved in March, that is our new normal.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next questioner. Your line is now open.
Hi again. It's Olivier from Kepler again. Just to follow up, are you hearing anything that might be encouraging regarding the acceptance of telemedicine by the public health insurance system in Germany?
Well, Olivier, we know that there are negotiations going on that haven't been concluded yet. You know there are different types of telemedicine services.
Of course, the big breakthrough for this new approach would be if it would, once it will be, I think it will be, it's a question of timing and the how, once this will be reimbursed by the statutory health insurances in Germany. Right now, what we are doing with Zava today is largely addressing the self-pay market to a certain extent, the market of the privately insured. But again, the big game changer would be if reimbursement by the statutory sick funds in Germany is in place. We know these discussions are ongoing, but of course, we're not part of these discussions. We're not privy to this.
All right. Thanks very much.
Thank you. There are no additional questioners at this time.
Okay. If there are no questions, then I want to thank all of you for your continued interest in Shop Apotheke. It has been an exciting journey.
It will be an exciting journey over the coming months and year, and there will be more great news that we will be able to share with you. Again, I just want to conclude with, I think, a reference to a very exceptional quarter where we demonstrated that actually we can earn money in this market with our business model, and we are well ahead of our internal plans for reaching this milestone. So thank you very much. As Jasper mentioned, we're going to provide a more comprehensive update on the year when we release our Q2 earnings in early August. Thank you very much. Have a great day.