Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to 3i's capital markets seminar for Action's 2021 financial results. My name is Simon Borrows. I'm the CEO of 3i and Chairman of Action. Also on the line is Julia Wilson, CFO of 3i, as well as Hajir Hajji, CEO of Action, and Joost Sliepenbeek, CFO of Action. We plan to go through the Action presentation, which has been put on our website this morning. This morning's capital markets day is focused on Action. Before diving into that subject, I wanted to advise you that the non-Action 3i private equity portfolio continues to perform resiliently with good momentum across the portfolio as a whole, as it emerges from two years of pandemic disruption.
Inflation and supply chain issues will be a challenge this year, but the majority of companies in our portfolio have plans to mitigate these issues. Our consumer and healthcare portfolios are continuing to trade well, and in recent months, we've seen a strong pickup in our travel-related investments, including Audley, Eurythia, Scandlines, and Smarte Carte. Now let me turn to slide two. As you can see, Action's high growth track record has continued. In fact, looking at this page, it's hard to believe that this is the record of a non-essential retailer, which has had to navigate many months of store closures and restrictions over the last two years. The EBITDA and cash flow performance have been particularly strong, with both these KPIs growing significantly since 2019. This performance is testament to the power of Action's brand and its customer-centric formula.
These strengths, together with the fantastic agility of Action's management and staff have been the bedrock of the performance over the last two years. While producing this performance, Action has continued to invest in the future with significant growth in store numbers and DC capacity, as well as the very successful entries into the Czech Republic and Italy, and latterly into Spain in the last month. On slide three, you can see that the compounding benefit of owning Action continues strongly for the 3i Group. We've done very well on the original GBP 106 million equity investment, and our further investment of GBP 591 million in early 2020 has already more than doubled in value. Now, let me introduce today's speakers from Action. Joost Sliepenbeek is well known to you having been part of the Action CMD for a number of years.
Joost is still in Amsterdam as he tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday. He has mild symptoms, so he's happy to be part of today's presentation. We're also joined by Hajir, who took over from Sander as Action CEO on the first of January. Hajir has had a remarkable career with all of it at Action. She started age 17 in store 13, working on Saturdays to earn some spending money and has risen rapidly as Action itself has grown. In 2011, when we bought the business, we followed the founder's advice to put her, age 29, on our new Action Executive Committee and give her responsibility for the international store rollout.
Her drive and success in that role was remarkable, so that when we had some challenges in buying and commercial in 2017, she agreed to move across to take charge of this area. Once again, she has had an enormous impact on overhauling and updating what is a key capability for Action. As chair of 3i's Investment Committee, I've been involved in the appointments of many CEOs across the 3i portfolios over the years. From that experience, I can honestly say that there has very rarely been such an all-round natural fit for a CEO role as was the case in the appointment of Hajir to Action. Thank you, and I will now hand over to her.
Thank you for the introduction, Simon, and good morning. I will now cover the business performance update, focusing on the past year, followed by an organizational and strategic update. Looking at the overall results, 2021 was, despite the different challenges, another year with a strong performance. We reported 11% like for like growth, which normalized for COVID restrictions was 7.5%. Furthermore, we reported EUR 6.8 billion of sales, an increase of 23% versus last year. We delivered EUR 828 million operating EBITDA, a 36% increase versus last year. Next to that, we opened 267 stores despite the challenges of COVID. As I said, 2021 was for retail, a challenging year. Action still delivered good performance, and let me explain to you why.
Of course, we also had to deal with store closures and other restrictions. Seven out of our nine markets were impacted by assortment or store restrictions, but fortunately, there were never more than two markets closed at the same time. I will touch upon the Action formula in more detail later, but in summary, the fact that the large part of our assortment is flexible and that we work with 14 categories makes us more flexible to deal with changes. We acted fast. Based on our experience of 2022, we had Click and Collect up and running within a few weeks. This allowed us to stay in touch with our customers and proved to be a good learning experience. In this very challenging period of COVID with all the infections, I was especially proud of our employees.
They were working in busy stores and had to deal with personal challenges. Still from start to end, we never had to close a single store due to a staff shortage. I just spoke about the store and assortment restrictions which we faced, but we had to deal with more challenges, changes in customer behavior, availability and price inflation. Joost will cover the topic of price inflation later in his section. Action has the flexibility to deal with these challenges. Let me give you a few examples. In case of changing customer needs or scarcity of raw materials, we have the option to delist items and to introduce others. We have more flexibility to adjust prices since we have a high rotation of products, and we have the flexibility to adjust the number of SKUs going up or down.
This all has limited impact on our customers because they are used to our everyday changing assortment, and our prices have remained highly competitive. Let's look at the impact of the COVID restrictions by markets, because this is an environment that we have acted in. You can clearly see that Q1 was the most heavily impacted quarter, and in Q4 we also saw restrictions. In terms of countries, especially the Netherlands, Germany and Austria were impacted. It is good to mention that in Germany and Austria, it was not always clear to customers which rules applied where and when. This, from time to time, led to lower traffic in stores, also outside of the restricted periods. Back to our performance. Looking at the two-year performance, despite all the customer changes, there was a growth across all categories.
One of our assets is the flexibility of the categories, and we showed the speed with which we could act. Let me give you a couple of examples. At the start of the pandemic, there was a high demand for hygiene products, such as toilet paper and sanitary wipes. When people were forced to spend more time at home, there was a high demand for products to be used in and around the house, decoration items, do-it-yourself articles and garden equipment. Furthermore, there was a run on sport equipment when indoor fitness and sport was restricted. Over the two-year time period, our sport category has grown quickly. Looking at the lowest performing categories, the customer restrictions led to lower footfall, leading to lower demand for impulse-driven items. This is reflected in the two-year performance of categories 13 and 14, personal care and multimedia.
Furthermore, multimedia was impacted by lower availability of chips. In summary, these examples show that we have the setup to deal with the volatility in customer behavior. This, again, is confirming the strength of the 14 categories because we were flexible and able to respond fast. All categories did well, and we had an overall good performance. 2021 was a record year in terms of store openings. Our store base grew by 267 stores despite the challenging environment as a result of COVID-19. 94 stores were opened in our number one market, France, this year, which is a great number compared to 42 new stores in the year before. Today, we have over 650 stores in France, only 10 years after entering the country. We've also been very successful in Poland in 2021 with 74 new stores.
Poland is a small part of the Action group, but is now growing very strongly. In Germany, we opened 46 stores and we successfully entered the new market, Italy. Next to our investments in new stores, we also invest in existing stores, focusing on updating look and feel and on a sustainable investment, such as gas reduction and LED light. In 2021, we refurbished 32 stores. We support this store growth by further investing in our DC network. We have opened two DCs last year, one in Bieruń in Poland, one in Bratislava in Slovakia, and we opened a hub in Wrocław in Poland. Our DC in Bieruń is the first DC outside the Netherlands that is operated by Action itself instead of operating by one of our logistic service providers.
Our DC network at the end of 2021 had the capacity to serve 2,400 stores, which represents an overcapacity of 20%. The current overcapacity is an investment in our future growth. Also, the density of our DC network supports us in the effort to reduce kilometers driven by our trucks to supply our stores. In 2021, we have realized a 5% reduction in the average distance of our stores to the DCs. All new DCs are developed according to high green sustainability standards. This naturally also applies for the DCs we are searching or developing for our future markets. In my years at Action, we entered many countries, but I still find it amazing to see that Action is very well received in every country we enter.
Although we ensure to keep our formula and format uniform, we find it key to have local management who understand the country retail environment. This approach has paid off. In the Czech Republic, we have added 21 stores. We had a very strong start in Italy with our first seven stores opened in the north, and we have outperformed the pilot assumptions. We currently have a local management team in place and are ready to accelerate the rollout. As shown on the previous slide, a DC close to Milan is planned to open in 2023. In Spain, we are in the pilot phase, and last week we opened our third store near Barcelona. Again, it was great to see that many customers were waiting in front of the store.
This brings me to the end of the business performance update, and now I will address the organizational and strategy update. As a fast-growing business, we find it essential to look ahead and think about our organization from time to time. This is why we reflected on our management structure with the aim to continue fast and thoughtful decision-making. This includes a new executive committee setup with many experienced senior management team members with a long history at Action. We have added the role of regional director to maintain simplicity in managing our country organization. We are glad to have appointed three experienced Action directors internally for these new roles. On group level, we have a strong team in place to support our country organization and stores. All in all, I'm convinced that this is the right team for the next phase of growth.
The Action strategy remains unchanged with our focus on customers and simplicity, but with more focus on sustainability. In the next minutes, I will talk about the different areas of the strategy. For some of you, this might be a familiar picture. Our customer proposition is simple and flexible, and let me walk you through the different parts. On average, we offer 6,000 SKUs across 14 categories. When a customer enters, they find every week between 150-200 new items in our stores. We offer every day the lowest price, and only 8% of our sales comes from promotion. We act fast when new interesting opportunities arise to offer surprising, good quality products at low prices. We offer a convenient shopping environment with an easy store layout, which is very simple and recognizable.
Our store format is the same across all markets, and this allows us to operate in scale and efficiently. Quality and sustainability are an integral part of our strategy. We have set up an Action-wide sustainability program driving overall sustainable improvements of Action. Later in this presentation, I will speak in more detail about our milestones and ambition in respect to this topic. The larger the size of Action, the more powerful the business model becomes. Our formula is highly scalable, resulting in strong growth of both sales and profitability. It is our winning customer proposition, which I have just discussed in the previous slide, that drives our top-line growth. Our operating model supports store expansion, which drives volume and allow to build more competitive advantage through size, purchasing power, and scale efficiencies. One brand, one store format, and one operating model.
Our format is simple, repeatable, and has proven to work in every country entered so far. We benefit from the simplicity of having one format across all countries in many ways. This allows for our rapid store rollout, and we stay away from adding unnecessary complexity to our organization. As I said before, we offer 6,000 items across 14 categories. The flexibility in this area is that we can increase or lower SKUs per category. Our buying teams for each category are operating in both a very proactive and responsive way, which allow us to adapt very quickly to changes in customer needs and behavior. For example, we could react when we saw an increased demand for sports and decoration items. We offer products across three product types.
We offer A brands without making concessions to our lowest price, and these brands help us in our quality perception and allow our customers to easily compare our prices to other retailers. Supplier brands, because we work with specialist suppliers, this results in many surprising items for our customers. Private label, in which we focus on specific product areas where we can make a difference, always providing quality for the lowest price. In recent years, we have paid additional attention to our collection of private labels for all 14 categories. This resulted in new private labels, as well as improvements made to our existing portfolio of private labels. Our investment in private label product is recognized by our customers. This has resulted in numerous awards won by products. For example, our Spectrum wood paint and our Zenova sunscreen.
The objective of our private label is to increase quality perception, increase shopping frequency, and to create a better shopping experience for our customers. In the coming years, we'll continue to invest in our private labels by further improving the quality and sustainability of our products. Currently, we have a total of 73 private labels across 14 categories, with private label sales increasing in line with the overall growth of the company. Private label sales in 2021 represented 18% of total Action sales, underlining the importance of private label for our customers. Offering the lowest price against a good value is in the Action DNA. This is what we're doing every day.
Despite price inflation, we have increased the price gap between Action and its competitors, and we're also on top of measuring our prices and acting in case we do not have the lowest price. The assortment structure is again an asset here. We have the option to delist an item in case we do not have the lowest price, and we do not hesitate to do this if this is required. Again, our customers are valuing our everyday changing assortment. On the other side, due to a high inflow of new items, we can more easily adapt our prices while still offering the lowest price in the market. At the same time, we take care to continuously introduce new and surprising items to avoid a static assortment. This pays off. The Action proposition appeals to everyone.
You can see on this picture that Action attracts customers with different incomes and different education levels. Also, in our newer markets, Action proves to have a broad appeal, and this provides comfort regarding our estimators for white space potential in these new markets. Let's move to the Action sustainability program, which is at the heart of the Action strategy. We have used the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, as an inspiration when creating our Action sustainability program. We have chosen for four pillars: product, planet, people, and partnership, because they allow us to make the most impact. Let me walk you through the four pillars. The aim of the product pillar is to offer products that are compliant, safe, and responsibly sourced while offering a good value for money. At Action, we have been working on making our assortment more sustainable for a long time already.
Take the example of our ambition to have 100% sustainable cotton by 2024. Currently, over 68% of cotton is sourced sustainably. We have achieved this four years after publishing our sustainable cotton policy, and are now in the top 25 users of global sustainable cotton. Secondly, we have the ambition to use 100% sustainable timber by 2024. Currently, 70% of our timber-based products are sourced sustainably. Action is also a strategic partner and supporter of FSC, but we have taken more efforts. In order to do this, we have embraced the philosophy of a circular economy. We have partnered with a leading company to conduct category-specific circularity scans. This will help our buyers further in making even more sustainable choices. We have completed half of the categories and are finalizing the other categories this year.
We are increasing the priority of transparency throughout our supply chain. We now have social compliance transparency on all suppliers and factories that supply Action private labels. Action is committed to 100% transparency on labor conditions within the supply chain by 2025. Action wants to show, using its unique formula, that sustainable products can be made affordable. We have accelerated our ambition to make the energy use of our stores carbon neutral by 2024. Based on the progress already achieved in 2021, we have the ambition to reduce our absolute emission from our own operations by 50% by 2030.
Steps we are taking to achieve this goal are decarbonizing our energy usage by using only green electricity by the end of 2022, and removing gas usage from our stores by the end of 2024, and significantly reducing the CO2 emissions of our outbound transport. We have already successfully made steps in becoming more sustainable. We are reducing our waste by continuously improving our efficient use of packaging. Over 50% of our stores fitted with energy efficient LED lights. New DCs are developed using high sustainability standards, and our newest DC in Bieruń acquired the Green Excellent status, which will also hold for the new DC center to be opened in Annecy in France in 2023. I've talked a lot about the formula, but the strength of our company next to the formula are our people. That is what makes us unique.
We provide work to over 65,000 people. Yearly, we create more than 5,000 jobs, and we provide jobs to people who otherwise find it difficult to enter the labor market. We also have the core principle that our workforce reflects the local customer base. Every year, we promote over 1,500 employees to new challenging positions. People are proud to work for Action. They value teamwork and the development opportunities that Action provides. They are the key outcome of the yearly employee engagement study in which 96% of our employees participated. This reflects our values and sets Action apart from other companies. We have always invested in our people. That is part of our DNA, and I see it as my responsibility to continue to invest in our people who are key to our high performance business.
Beyond the role of Action as a supplier of essential and good quality products at the lowest price, I find it important that Action acts as a responsible partner to society. As children are our future and the heart of society, we especially aim at supporting children. In 2021, we have extended our partnership with SOS Children's Villages by at least another three years. We support one child for every Action store. Total donations supported over 11,000 children worldwide. Also, Action has recently partnered with the Cruyff Foundation, an organization that develops sports activities for children all over the world with a focus on children in need. In 2021, we saw another year of COVID-19 and personal restrictions and issues for many. With different activities, we supported communities near our stores.
However, 2022, we see next to COVID, the need to support in the context of the war in Ukraine. Next to donating money, we of course have multiple initiatives. In Poland, we have provided space in our DCs to the NGOs, and we provided logistical support. We provided goods and temporary housing to the families of around 115 Ukrainian employees in Poland. This ends the update on the Action sustainability program and brings us to another part of the Action strategy. In recent years, we have accelerated our digital ecosystem to bring more customers to our stores, and we are continuing these investments and are on track. In 2021, the Action app has been launched in April in the Netherlands with 600,000 downloads so far.
In 2022, the app will be rolled out in Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. The effect of these investments is underpinned by the growth in reach of all our channels. 11% up in Instagram and 9% growth in Facebook. We have our own social media, but also see more and more spontaneous fan clubs. These fan clubs have a current total of 3 million members across markets. A few weeks ago, I personally received this great picture of two young Action fans who have been visiting an Action for years and made their own Action outfits from Action bags. The strength of the Action brand, combined with the increase of social media reach, result in high awareness of Action, both in our existing markets and in the new countries we enter.
Whenever we now open a country, the brand is already known by a lot of customers. This provide us with confidence for all the store openings to come. We have started our eCommerce pilot during the COVID lockdown period using the lessons learned from Click and Collect. The eCommerce pilot has a different format compared to our stores in such a way that is different than our store offering. The eCommerce offering includes different items to our stores, relatively higher priced items, without impacting the perception of our lowest price offering. Pricing of items is still very competitive compared to other online retailers. These can also include products that are less easy to sell in stores due to their size. We offer new products every Tuesday in a flash style sale, and the eCommerce products are only sold online. Currently, the pilot is only run in the Netherlands.
We are monitoring the pilot closely, and we will continue to do so in the coming months. So far, the eCommerce pilot has been a fantastic learning experience, but despite the initial success, our eCommerce pilot is still in an early phase. Our main focus remains on opening stores. Now that I'm almost to the end of my story, I want to pause and look back on how we successfully expand our footprint in Europe over the last 10 years. Over the last decade, we gained valuable experience by opening many new countries. Our organization is well-positioned to expand in new countries in the future as we make use of the lessons learned in recent years. Recent openings in Italy and Spain show that Action is well received in every country we enter.
Our quick growth pace is confirmed by Deloitte study, which shows that we are the 12th fastest growing retailer globally over the period 2015 to 2020. As previously said, 2021 was a record year in number of store openings, but we still have significant space to grow both in existing and in new markets. This brings us to the next slide. Our main growth markets for the coming year are again France, Germany and Poland. The remaining white space potential for these three countries alone is estimated to be around 2,000 stores. Our second focus is on the new growth markets. Rollout in Italy is planned for 2022 after a successful pilot in 2021, with significant white space across the country. We have opened our first store in Spain in February 2022.
Based on the results of the first weeks, we are excited for the further rollout. In total, the potential white space in existing markets and new markets is around 4,500. In this estimate, new markets are only included in case a market study has been performed, which currently is the case for seven countries. This means that the white space potential is a conservative one, given that Europe offers more potential for Action than only the seven countries for which market studies are performed. I would like to conclude with saying that Action is ready to further pick up the pace. We will leverage our experience to accelerate not only our expansion, but also our sustainability and digital agenda. I would like everybody to have the possibility to shop at Action. We have the formula, the team, and the experience to make this happen.
With this message, I want to end the business section of this update. Now I hand it over to Joost Sliepenbeek to provide more background to our financial results.
Thank you, Hajir. Good morning. My name is Joost Sliepenbeek, and I'm the CFO of Action since 2018. In the next circa 35 minutes, I'm going to present and explain our financial performance in 2021. After that, I will provide an update of our 2022 financials up to and including last week. I start with a slide that I've also used the last three years. It is the financial model behind our strategy. These fundamentals remain unchanged. They also explain the resilience of our performance, even in two years with COVID, global supply chain issues, and more recently, fast rising inflation. After having opened fewer stores in 2020 because of COVID, we have resumed our store openings at a higher pace and opened 269 new stores last year. We've also closed two stores, so net we have added 267.
This is an important driver of our top line growth, but also of EBITDA and value. The reasons are explained on the slide, and again, you have seen them before. I confirm that the economics are still the same. First, the payback of the stores is very attractive. We rent our stores and the investment spend of approximately EUR 435K per store is relatively low. Historically, we've had an average payback of around one year, and this is also true for stores opened in 2020 and 2021 if we normalize for the weeks that these stores were closed or could only sell a limited assortment. Second, all stores opened before 2021 contribute at the level of store contribution margin. That is again with the caveat that weeks that stores were impacted by COVID restrictions are excluded.
If we go further down in the P&L and we look at store contribution after supply chain costs, this is also true with the exception of only three stores in Austria where we have two-day delivery until they can be delivered from a new distribution center. I will use our financial model and usual performance metrics to comment on our 2021 performance. As was the case in 2020, in 2021 specific elements have affected our performance and numbers. Therefore, I will also cover the impact of these specific circumstances, being first, how like for like can be normalized to adjust for the impact of lockdowns. Second, the impact of COVID on operating costs. Third, the development of gross margins and the impact of rising inflation towards the end of the year. And finally, the impact of global supply chain issues on product availability.
In 2021, we realized a 22.7 increase in net sales and a 36.1 increase in operating EBITDA. Consequently, our operating EBITDA as a percentage of net sales improved a very significant 120 basis points to 12.1%. I will elaborate on the drivers of this margin expansion later in this section. Of course, these financial achievements are remarkable considering the impact COVID again has had on our operations. Below right on the slide, you see the run rate EBITDA, which is our operating EBITDA plus the run rate adjustment that we make for stores that are open less than 12 months. The adjustment aims to reflect the EBITDA of expansion stores in the second full year after opening, so that is after the in-growth phase.
2021 was a record year in terms of store openings, the adjustment increased to EUR 83 million compared to EUR 35 million in 2020. This reflects the increase from 164 openings in 2020 to 269 in 2021, but also an increase in the adjustment per store based on the actuals of 2019 and 2020. Our reported like-for-like for 2021 is 11%. Of course, this number is heavily impacted by COVID restrictions, both in the base year 2020 as well as in 2021. As Hajir has shown, in 2021, our stores were impacted by two periods of lockdowns. First, in weeks one until 22, with store closures or assortment restrictions across all markets except for Poland.
Second, in weeks 47 until 52, where store closures impacted the Netherlands and assortment restrictions Austria. In addition, in certain states in Germany and in Austria, we were required to perform entrance checks during this period. This is the so-called 2G system, where we have to check through a QR code that customers are either vaccinated or recovered. Therefore, same as last year, we've calculated a normalized like for like by adjusting for the periods that countries were impacted by lockdowns. Let me explain how we went about calculating the adjustments. First, we only normalized when we were forced to close stores or remained open but with a limited assortment of essential products. No normalization for restrictions of the number of customers or entrance checks.
Although the latter certainly did have a negative impact on sales in the last months of 2021, leading in some states in Germany to traffic 25% down. Second, we've also normalized for a possible reopening effect in the three weeks following a reopening after a period of restrictions. Finally, to normalize, we have in most cases used the year-to-date like-for-like sales performance, and the only exception to that rule is the lockdowns early 2021, where we have used the budget as a better proxy instead. For 2021, the normalized like-for-like is 7.5%. This is lower than the reported number because the impact of restrictions in the base year 2020 was bigger than in 2021. The 7.5% is significantly higher than the average of 5.7% for the five years before COVID.
The 10.4% normalized like-for-like for 2020 was even higher, helped by a very strong period between lockdowns, with good weather leading to very strong seasonal sales in especially garden and people still restricted in traveling. Another way to calculate an adjusted sales growth to adjust for lockdown measures is to only include the weeks that stores were open and selling the full assortment. This approach also adjusts for the impact of lockdown measures. Where our normalization adjusts by adding sales, this approach excludes the impacted weeks. Where we do normalize for the higher sales of the reopening effect after lockdown, this is not adjusted if you calculate sales growth for stores open with full assortment. Therefore, this number is higher than the normalized like for likes.
As you can see on the slide, for 2020 it was 10.4% normalized versus 13.1% based on stores open with the full assortment. For 2021, it was 7.5% and 9% respectively. On this slide, we show reported and normalized like-for-like performance for each reporting period. I will make some comments moving from left to right. Periods one and two in 2020 were still pre-COVID, and we had a strong start to the year with 7.5% like-for-like. In 2021, we were impacted by lockdowns in the Netherlands and Germany, as well as Austria, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg, but we had very strong sales in other markets. Normalized, the like-for-like for the two periods together was 20.1%.
In periods three to six, we've had impact of lockdowns in both years, but more impactful in 2020. Normalized like for like in these periods ranges between 6.2%-14% and was 11.3% for the whole period. Actual like for likes are equal to normalized like for likes in period seven to 10 as lockdowns did not impact sales in these periods in either year. In 2020, sales in these periods was very strong with like for like of 13.6%, reflecting good weather and international travel still depressed. Cycling against that exceptional performance in 2020, the like for like in 2021 of 4.8% is still a strong performance.
In periods 11 and 12, we had store closures in the Netherlands and assortment restrictions in Austria in 2021, where store closures and assortment restrictions across several markets impacted sales in the same periods in 2020. Note that in 2021, sales was also impacted by entrance checks that we were required to perform in Germany and Austria, but these are not normalized. In the countries and the weeks that we were open in 2021, we had very strong seasonal sales in November, and that was mostly Christmas and winter clothing, and that was several weeks earlier than normal. This led to very strong sales in period 11, but we were sold out earlier in period 12, depressing the reported and normalized like for like for that period. Normalized like for like for the whole period was -0.9%.
On this slide, we present the sales growth in 2020 and 2021 for stores opened before 2019. In other words, for a like for like group. This is for the weeks that the stores were open and selling the full assortment. Note that COVID restrictions varied by country and therefore also the periods included in the analysis for each country varies. The Czech Republic is not included at all in this analysis as the first stores were opened in 2020. As you can see from the orange bars, the two-year performance of Action has been very strong in all countries without exception. Having said that, we do see some differences between the years and or the development of individual countries versus the overall Action development.
For instance, in Belgium and France, the sales growth in 2021 was even stronger than in 2020. This contrasts with Germany, where we had 18.3% sales growth in 2020 and -1.2% in 2021. The explanation for this development in Germany is in both years. In 2020, we had both a very strong reopening as well as hoarding towards the end of the period because of the early announcement of the second lockdown. Also in 2020, sales was helped in Germany by the reduction of VAT from 19%-16% for the high rate and 7%-5% for the low rate. In 2021, we had the 2G rules in various states that had a very significant impact, with customers confused to a maximum.
These stores and weeks were not excluded because the stores were open and they were selling the full assortment. Nevertheless, for the two years, Germany has realized a very significant 19.6% growth. In Austria, the percentage for 2021 is also lower than 2020, with 5.2% and 15.6% respectively. There's a similar explanation as for Germany. Let me take you through the four quarters of the year and explain the way COVID has impacted the numbers. Again, in the comparison between 2020 and 2021, this is a challenge given the impact of COVID in different ways and countries as well as in different periods. I start with the first quarter.
In the first two periods of that quarter in 2021, we were impacted heavily in the Netherlands, with all stores closed from week one to 17. This obviously impacted sales and EBITDA for the Netherlands. In addition, we were impacted by COVID restrictions in Germany, where the restrictions were different per state, but with also a significant impact for the country as a whole. By contrast, the first two periods in 2020 were not yet impacted by COVID, and we had a strong start to the year with overall sales growth of 22% and EBITDA growth of 47% compared to 2019. Consequently, year-to-date period 2 2021, we had overall sales growth of -13.1% and operating EBITDA was EUR 50.3 million below 2020.
In period three, the last period of the quarter, the impact in the two years was the other way around. Very significant impact in 2020 from the first COVID lockdowns. Net sales was 52.1% higher in 2021 in period three, with EUR 43.9 million higher operating EBITDA. If you add that together, this has led to a quarter with 8.5% higher sales and EUR 6 million lower EBITDA. In the second quarter, the lockdown in 2020 continued for the first six weeks of the quarter. Our periods four and five were impacted, leading to an overall quarter in 2020 with negative sales growth of -8.8% and EBITDA growth of -19.5%.
By contrast, in 2021, although period four was still impacted, periods five and six were very strong, helped by reopening effects. This led to the 52.3% net sales growth and a 107% operating EBITDA growth that you see on the slide. The third quarter was mostly not impacted by COVID restrictions in both years. We had strong sales in both years, with 2020 helped by good weather and international travel still depressed. Overall sales growth was 16.9% and EBITDA growth 29.9%. Finally, in the fourth quarter, we had again restrictions in both years, which took different forms and periods, but generally speaking with less impact in 2021. In the periods that we were open without restrictions, we had strong sales in both years.
Overall sales growth was 18.6% and EBITDA growth 27.4%. Finally, the impact of COVID on operating costs for the full year. In 2020, we had to incur in total EUR 25 million of extra wage costs to maintain social distancing with door policies, extra hygiene, et cetera, which was only partially offset by received subsidies and rent discounts. In 2021, we have incurred EUR 24 million of extra wage costs with the amount of subsidies and new rent discounts reduced to virtually zero. We had 269 store openings in 2021. A record number, but lower than our target of 300, mainly because certain projects were delayed or postponed because of permitting issues or shortages in contractors and or building materials.
Because we've also closed two stores, we've added 267 stores, bringing the year-end total to 1,983. Main growth countries were France, 94 stores added, Poland 74, and Germany 46. The number of store openings and also the white space in these countries underline our ambitions to grow even further. For 2022, our ambition is to open more stores than the 269 that we've opened in 2021. Main growth countries again will be France, Poland and Germany. We will also focus on expanding our store base in recently entered countries, Italy and the Czech Republic. Finally, we are opening pilot stores in Spain, with the first three already opened in February and March of this year. An important reason for our success is our margin management.
Our brand promise is more than you expect for less than you imagine, and this translates into the lowest price and a great surprise for our customers. It also means that within our chosen 14 categories, we can offer a changing range of products, and that allows us to buy only products that also provide an attractive margin. That again shows in the consistent and stable margin performance across categories and over periods. Versus 2020, our overall growth margin in 2021 was 70 basis points higher. This was driven by a higher share of direct import, which is part of our strategy. There's also approximately 40 basis points that are explained by two more incidental drivers, being lower promotional pressure and the timing of price increases.
The lower promotional pressure in 2021 can be explained by the reduced need for promotions in certain periods of the year because of a combination of lockdowns and reopenings on the one hand and product availability on the other. In addition, in the last quarter of the year, we've seen inflation leading to price increases in our cost of goods sold. In some cases, sales price increases were implemented in anticipation to align with competition or seasonal offering, which also contributed to a higher margin. We expect that this will not repeat in 2022, with a consequent impact on gross margins this year. Now let's turn to profitability, and I want to analyze this for the stores that were open a full year in 2019, and that means all 1,321 stores that were opened before 2019.
I also have only included the periods that these stores were open without restrictions in 2020 and 2021. Again, this is determined per country as you can see on the slide. This slide shows the average store contribution margin and that excludes still supply chain costs. Overall, the increase was 250 basis points, and this increase correlates with the sales growth. In the Netherlands and Belgium, which are our two most mature markets, the sales growth for the two-year period was 16.7% and 20% respectively, translating into a contribution margin of 185 and 200 basis points higher. In Germany and France, sales growth was 20.4% and 21.4% respectively, with 280 and 295 basis points.
You've seen on the slide with the sales growth per country that in Germany the sales growth was completely in the first year. As you can see here, this is also the case for the increase in store contribution margin. In Austria, we have, in addition to the leverage from additional sales, the benefit of the management changes that we've made in 2019. Finally, in Poland, the increase is also influenced by some improvements that we have made in our price position. I've explained the drivers of the very significant operating EBITDA margin expansion of 120 basis points last year. Some are explained by our operating model and tight cost controls. I've also mentioned that there are elements included that were incidental and will not carry over in the 2022 margin.
This relates to the circa 40 basis points in the gross margin. Looking at 2022, that means that we do not expect a further expansion of our EBITDA margin as operating leverage on the one hand will be offset by gross margins without the incidental pluses of 2021. In 2021, our CapEx increased by EUR 10 million, or 5.8% to EUR 183 million. As a percentage of sales, CapEx was 2.7%, down from 3.1% in 2020, continuing a downward trend reflecting our increasing scale. Our store expansion CapEx increased to EUR 170 million in 2021, which is fully explained by 105 more store openings. Average CapEx per new store in 2021 of 435K was in line with 2020.
Although we've clearly seen inflation and scarcity leading to upward pressure in the last quarter, which is continuing into this year. CapEx for new DCs had a net positive impact on our cash flow of GBP 15 million. The driver is the sales of our assets of DC Ossola, which was recorded in 2021 and concerns the de facto shift of GBP 21.4 million CapEx between 2021 and 2019, which was the year in which the majority of the CapEx for DC Ossla was incurred. The 2021 CapEx presented on this slide only includes the book value of the assets sold in the Ossola and leaseback. There was also a book gain of GBP 10 million realized on the sales, and that was recorded as an exceptional result in our profit and loss statement, and is therefore not part of our operating EBITDA.
Our investment in IT in 2021 remains in line with 2020 and 2019, and we will continue to invest in a number of IT infrastructure projects in coming years, including a technology upgrade of our core ERP landscape to SAP S/4HANA. One of the elements of our financial model is excellent cash generation. I've mentioned this on my opening slide. This translates into a high cash conversion, with operating cash flow historically around 70%-80% of operating EBITDA and 8%-9% of net sales. Note that I've changed the metric on this slide versus prior years. I'm now showing an unadjusted number, whereas I used to adjust operating cash flow for the CapEx for new DCs. We've decided to no longer make this adjustment because investments in new DCs are now structural and related to our store expansion.
Also because most of our new DCs are now developed by third parties, where in the past, we also did developments ourselves and then did a sale and leaseback as we still had in 2021 with DC Oss. The 93% for 2021 is even higher than historically. This can mostly be explained by two reasons. First, the lockdowns in 2021 have led to some shifts in our buying, and that was nowhere near as significant as in 2020, but it has influenced the composition and movement of our inventory versus other years, positively impacting our 2021 cash flows. Second, because of the change in the metric, the sale and leaseback of DC Oss has increased 2021 operating cash flow with GBP 32 million.
Not included in operating cash flow is the interim dividend of GBP 325 million that we've paid in December. Including this payment, we finished the year with cash and cash equivalents of GBP 759 million. This slide summarizes our operating performance over the first two years of the COVID pandemic, including all the impact and unadjusted. For the two years impacted by COVID, the compounded annual growth rates for net sales and operating EBITDA are 15.6% and 23.7% respectively. This is in spite of the impact of the COVID pandemic and other external challenges. It evidences the resilience and flexibility of our format and operating model. This slide brings together the high-level financials as I've covered per item in the previous slides.
As I've said at the start of my presentation, our overall performance for the years has been strong with 22.7% net sales growth, 36.1% operating EBITDA growth, and 12.1% EBITDA margin, and EUR 770 million operating cash flow. We've opened a record 269 stores and have reduced our leverage to 2.4x after paying an interim dividend of EUR 325 million in December. I repeat, this performance shows the strength of our brand format and that our financial model remains unchanged. In 2019, we've implemented IFRS 16. In the presentation so far, all the financial information is still on a pre-IFRS 16 basis. We've chosen for this to keep consistency and comparability over the years.
Our 2021 annual report will of course include IFRS 16, and this slide shows the impact. In the profit and loss statement, our IFRS EBITDA is GBP 230 million higher than pre-IFRS 16 operating EBITDA. That can be explained by three items. First, excluding GBP 230 million of lease costs. Second, including GBP 6 million of adjusting items that mostly relate to the GBP 10 million gain on the sale of DC Oss. Finally, including an IFRS adjustment of -GBP 6 million for that same sale and leaseback. Further down in the P&L, depreciation increases with GBP 240 million, leading to GBP 10 million higher operating income. Finally, finance costs increase with GBP 90 million, leading to GBP 9 million lower profit before tax.
On the balance sheet, a right of use asset of EUR 889 million and a lease liability of EUR 895 million is added. In calculating that liability, our lease term estimate is relatively short, for the stores on average 3.4 years. This reflects our lease contracts that provide us flexibility with short initial terms and renewal options that we can elect to use. If you calculate the additional EBITDA over the lease liability, you get to 3.9x . Finally, I want to say a few things about currency. Today, we are in week 12. As you know, we have a 52-week and a 12-period reporting calendar, with quarters of three periods, with four, and five weeks. That means that today we are in week four of our period three, with still one week to go for quarter one.
The information on these slides covers year to date until last week, so week 11. As you can see, our overall sales growth for these 11 weeks has been very strong at 46.3%. Like for like was 31.4%. These numbers are again, of course, impacted by COVID in both years with the first two weeks of 2022 store closures in the Netherlands and for the whole period, high rates of infections continuing in all markets. These results are likely to give rise to a strong quarter for LTM sales and EBITDA growth. For the rest of the year, I expect that the relative growth will normalize. We're seeing good footfall with traffic in line with last year.
In recent weeks, it looks like basket sizes are slightly smaller, and that's perhaps not completely surprising because items per ticket increased significantly in 2020 and 2021, and we're still significantly higher than pre-COVID at +8.7%. Finally, the average price per item is only 3% higher. I say only because we are seeing increases in prices for comparable products of almost 5%. This is an early indication that customers are focusing partly on lower priced items. I have to stress that this sample is just from a few weeks, so it's all still very early. Finally, we're not experiencing any change in trading across the network as a result of the situation in Ukraine. Our store openings are on track with 22 stores opened, including one store in Italy and three stores in Spain.
Earlier this week, we paid a second dividend to our shareholders, GBP 344 million. This is an appropriation of our 2022, 2021 profits after having paid an interim dividend of GBP 325 million in December. It reduces our net financing costs because of the negative interest rates that we pay on our cash holdings. After the second dividend payment, our cash and cash equivalents stood at GBP 464 million, and that excludes approximately GBP 96 million of unused revolver. Total cash and liquidity is GBP 560 million. This is a robust level, especially given that our normal seasonality is that we are cash positive from March onwards. With that, I hand back to our chairman, Simon Borrows.
Thank you, Joost. As Joost said, Action has started the year well, and we're on track to see a significant step-up in run rate EBITDA to the 31st of March. I should also thank Hajir and Joost for the second Action dividend, which hit the 3i bank account on Tuesday. As you can see from this slide, Action is well on track to meet the key elements of the medium-term plan, which was published in 2019, prior to the outbreak of COVID. Let me conclude by saying the 3i team remains highly engaged on Action and is excited to be supporting Hajir in her new role. Action has an enormous runway of white space ahead of it, and the results from early trading in Italy and the pilot in Spain suggest that both these countries are set to become significant markets for Action over the coming years.
The step up in Action's financial performance, particularly operating EBITDA and cash flow, have been notable in 2021, and we see continuing very strong organic growth in the coming years. Okay, I will now hand back to the moderator before we commence the Q&A session.
Thank you. Participants can now submit questions in written format via the webcast page by clicking the Ask a Question button. If you are dialed in to the call and would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star then one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for a moment to assemble the queue. Now we will take our first question from Philip Middleton from Bank of America. Please proceed. Your line is open now.
Yes. Thank you very much. Thanks for taking my question, and thank you for a really helpful performance. I wonder, could you comment a little about how are you thinking about your customers' behavior if you're seeing disposable income squeezed by inflation, which seems to be the way of the world at the moment? Do you think that drives more people through to you, or do you think that might potentially mean your customers have less disposable income even to spend on your assortment?
Hajir, do you want to take that?
I think if I just look back over the last two years, we already have seen customer behavior during the period during COVID. I think again, we have shown that the 14 categories and the flexibility that we were able to just pick it up. I think actually as a format and as a discounter could be very relevant in this period where people have less money to spend. I think the great thing of the 14 categories is that if that is the case, then we have the flexibility also to offer that to the customer. If I just look back on the history of Action, the 30 years, of course, we had periods where people had more to spend and less to spend.
I think we also have shown in the past those in the periods that people had less to spend, that Action was more successful in those periods.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question is from Romain Kumps from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open now.
Yes. Good morning. Thanks for the presentation and taking my questions. Our first question on the business plan that you presented in 2019. You seem now well ahead of this plan, could you maybe give us the rationale for maintaining those targets today?
Okay. We do intend on producing another medium-term plan, but it is not the priority for the short term. There is a pretty challenging trading environment in front of us at the moment, and Hajir Hajji is really very new into the role. It is not a priority for the next six or nine months, but it will be worked up as we get through towards the end of the year.
All right. That doesn't mean that you would decrease the margin from that 12% you had last year? I see pressure from.
I mean, we're pretty confident that the plan is going to be exceeded in the timeframe that's set out. I'm just making the point that we're not going to revise any five-year calculations or anything like that until we have more time to do that.
Yep. All right. A second question on the white space potential. Is there any country that you can already, let's say, for sure you're gonna enter in the coming years? I think that Ukraine is one of them, if I see well on the screen.
No. We haven't done a market study on Ukraine, so it's not one of the countries. I think having recently entered three countries, we have our hands full for the immediate future.
All right. Thanks.
Thank you. The next question is from Luke Mason from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead. Your line is open now. Could you please make sure that you are not on mute?
Oh, yeah. Sorry. Can you hear me now?
Yes.
Yeah. Morning, Luke.
Hi. Thank you. Morning, guys. First question just on EBITDA margin expected to be broadly stable this year. Just to confirm, that's kind of a partial impact in gross margins of the 40 basis points, and then I guess some cost inflation in there in the gross margins, and then that's offset by operating leverage on central costs. Then secondly, on the private label. It's 18% of sales now, where could that shift to over time? And does that have a positive impact on gross profit margins? Then just thirdly, on the new store openings. 369+ new stores expected this year. I guess you mentioned some impact in 2021 from supply chain planning, et cetera. Are you seeing any of that impact?
Longer term, do you think you can get, let's say, over 300 stores per year? Thank you.
Thanks, Luke. Three questions. I suggest Joost take the first, Hajir take the second on private label, and I'll have a go at the third.
Thank you, Luke and Simon. If I've understood the question correctly, it is about our EBITDA margin and whether it will stay at the same level as we've realized in 2021, so 12.1%, and that is indeed what I've indicated. We will have some benefit as in other years from operating leverage. At the same time, we will not see this 40 basis points extra that we had in the gross margin repeating and the two balance out against each other.
Okay. Hajir, do you want to talk on the private label point?
Yeah. I think in terms of private label, I showed in my presentation that we have supplier brands, A brands and private label. I think the great asset of Action is that in terms of margin performance, there is not a huge benefit for the private label part. We really do that to drive customers to the stores and for the quality perception. I think over the years, we just see a development across different categories. It's not that we have a single number.
Thanks, Hajir. I mean, on store openings, Luke, we're a little loath to sort of go back to a 300 target at the moment because we have seen disruptions in the property market and the planning market because of COVID. This looks like being another choppy year, not only for the level of COVID infections currently, but also because of the situation that's going on in Ukraine. We are hopeful we will exceed last year's number, but we don't want to be pinned to a particular number. The goal further out from that is to hit 300 and indeed to go beyond 300. We sort of need to get through this difficult scenario. We're not sure to what degree it will affect confidence in markets.
Things like property markets and lending markets are quite important for new developments and where we put stores and things like that. It's a complicated thing. We're confident of exceeding last year's number, but we don't want to say anything more than that at the moment.
Great. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Before we proceed with the next question, I would like to remind everyone that please press star then one on your telephone keypad if you would like to ask an audio question. Now on to the next question. It is coming from Warwick Okines from BNP Paribas Exane. Please proceed. Your line is open now.
Good morning. I've got two questions, please, both on inflation. The first is that you talked about how you can delist products, depending on price and your own commercial decisions. Have you actually been churning your product portfolio more than normal as you try and dial out that inflation? Then the second question is, are you hoping to raise prices by less than your competition and widen the price gap, or are you trying to maintain the price gap?
Hajir, I think they're both yours.
Yeah. I don't know if I heard the first question right, so maybe somebody can repeat it.
How extensive has the delisting activity been on it when products become too expensive?
Yeah. I think with the high inflation, we have delisted a couple of items. I would say that is more than normal, but it is not extreme.
Okay.
That is one.
Raising prices. Do you keep your distance or do you want to make even more distance with your competition?
Well, I think overall, being the lowest on price is really who we are and how we act. I think the whole inflation part is an industry-wide challenge, and I think everyone has to deal with these price increases. I think what we're doing is we also increase prices, but we still maintain that we are the lowest in price compared to competition. This is really something which we very strongly measure every single day, and we're following that up. The outcome for the first 10 weeks this year already is that we have a bigger gap between us and competition compared to other years.
Okay.
The price positioning has improved this year, I would say, versus the years before.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions on the conference line. I will now hand over to Silvia Santoro, Group Investor Relations Director, to address the written questions submitted via the webcast page.
Thank you, Operator. We have a few questions from Samarth Agrawal from Citi. The first is, what is the estimated CapEx outlook for 2022? Can you provide a breakdown of CapEx related to, A, store expansion, NDCs and, B, e-commerce? The second question is, what is the differentiation for Action's e-commerce offering versus the competition? Can you elaborate on your strategy related to customer acquisition, product sourcing and delivery logistics? The third question is, can you confirm your store openings target for 2022, please? What are the key risks which could result in lower stores versus targeted for this year? I'm sorry, and I think the last question was already answered.
Yeah. Joost, can I suggest you do the estimated CapEx and, Hajir, if you will do the differentiation on e-commerce. You're on mute, Joost.
Sorry, I was still on mute. In our budget, we have budgeted an increase in CapEx, and that is driven by a number of things. First of all, the number of store openings, but also a slight increase in the CapEx per store. I did mention in my presentation already, that that is what we have seen in the last quarter of last year, very much driven by inflation, so everybody will recognize that. We have indeed included that as well in our budget. For IDCs, we have included an amount for opening another, or building, I should say, another 2 DCs, but this is a relatively limited amount because as I said, these will be developed by third parties.
We are still working on a sale and leaseback transaction for our DC in Verrières-en-Anjou because that was developed by ourselves. Today, I'm not certain if that will be completed in this year given where market stands, so that may move into next year. Finally, we've also included a higher amount for IT CapEx, and that is related to this technology upgrade that I've mentioned, where we are going to upgrade our core ERP landscape to SAP S/4HANA.
Thank you, Joost. Okay, Hajir.
On the e-commerce question. Well, we are a retailer with 2000 stores, and we have a pilot on e-commerce with a couple of items per week. Again, I would not make this too big, it's still a pilot, and our main focus is on the physical stores. Having said that, what we already can see within the pilot phase is that from a commercial perspective, we can differentiate ourselves compared to competition like we're doing in our stores. That is just bringing good items with good quality for low prices.
You're using a third-party fulfillment agent.
Yeah.
to carry this out? Yeah.
This is very small.
Yeah. Okay, we've already answered your third question, so.
Yes. We then have a question from Kim Berger from Numis, and that's just a little more detail on the financial impacts of inflation on the business.
Joost, can you tackle the inflation impact on the business?
Yeah, I can say a few things about that. Let me start by saying if I read in The Times of this morning that in the U.K., the Office for Budget Responsibility now expects inflation to go up to a level twice as high as predicted six months ago, reaching 8.7% this winter, I think that is quite unprecedented, and I expect similar things or similar predictions at least for our operating markets. When we made the budget in November, December of last year, sorry, we have assumed a mid-single figure as the increase for the average price per item. Of course, we also had assumptions for our cost lines. These assumptions for the cost lines were differentiated based on characteristic per cost lines.
For instance, if you look at our wages, we have collective labor agreements in place in most markets. That gives a certainty, you would say, for at least 2022. Another example is prices for energy. We fixed them for the stores for the whole of 2022. If I look at today, we are confronted with higher price increases for certain products, and sometimes they are significantly higher. We're also seeing increases in other cost lines that go beyond what we've assumed in the budget. As an example, the diesel for our trucks. In 2021, we spent approximately EUR 23 million on that. In the budget, we have assumed 26. If I take the price that we're paying today, and I project it for the rest of the year, I would end at EUR 38 million.
That we have not hedged. When it comes to wage costs, I said that we have collective labor agreements in place, and that is the case. I also expect pressure even with these agreements. I see that, for instance, in a country like Belgium, there is a system of automatic wage indexations, and that will have an upward pressure as well. Overall, I think there is uncertainty, but we will deal with all of these as it occurs. We have to manage this as we have managed COVID in the last two years. As Hajir has explained, our starting point is that we know from past experience that our format becomes more relevant to customers in periods where there is pressure on income or economic downturns. She's also explained our flexibility to make changes to the assortment.
Today, we see, in fact, a higher demand for essential low-priced items, which we see as an opportunity for Action. As long as we remain our lowest price position, we're able to increase our prices to offset inflation.
Thanks, Joost.
We now have a question from Luke Ramsbottom from Mattioli Woods. Do you see any opportunity in expanding into the U.K. market?
I'll answer that. We haven't done a country study on it, so we're not looking at it at the moment. Who knows? But it's not in the sights at the moment.
A question from Jeff Meys from NNIP. Could you describe 3i's exit strategy for Action?
We don't have an exit strategy at the moment. We're a very keen holder of this and, it's been a wonderful compounder for us, and we don't see that changing for some time yet.
Absolutely. Now, just a quick reminder, if you wish to ask an audio question, please key star then one on your telephone keypad. You can also submit questions in written format via the webcast page by clicking the Ask a Question button. Thank you.
Just another question from Charles Bendit at Redburn. Just as Action has begun to enter Southern European countries, have you observed any materially different consumer preferences compared with Central and Eastern European countries or similar? To the degree that there are differences in products sold, does this limit scale efficiencies in any way, or should we expect similar store economics we have observed in the European rollout of Action to date? Is there anything else we should look out for as Action expands into these new geographies?
Hajir, that's one for you, I think.
Yeah. The answer is no. I think the great thing of Action, 95% of what we're selling, we're selling it across all the countries. I think that is really working, and I would say especially in the more southern countries. If we look to our performance in Italy and Spain in the three pilots which we have, it is even more appreciated, our assortment, than compared to the other markets. I see this as a huge opportunity and a great benefit to keep also the organization simple in terms of how we buy.
There's certainly no sign in the early trading that the store economics will be any less favorable than in Northern Europe.
We have a question on the audio side, which is coming from Romain Kumps from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Yes, one remaining question. Just on the direct sourcing, I think you had 13% of sales in 2020, and you had a target to reach 20% in the three-four years. Has it been any improvements there or increase?
Hajir, do you wanna take that?
Yeah, I didn't hear the question, but.
What is the proportion of direct sourcing? Has it moved up?
Yeah. It has moved up. As we speak, 2021, our direct sales share was 13.2%. We're still aiming in a couple of years from now to grow to the 20%. That is in line with what we have in our business plan.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions on the audio line.
No further questions through the webcast. Simon, back to you.
Okay. Well, let me wrap it up. Firstly, I'd like to say thank you very much to Joost and Hajir Hajji, particularly Joost getting up from his sick bed to do this. I appreciate that. Thank you to everyone for tuning in. We appreciate it. Okay, goodbye.