I have to admit it's a pleasure to finally see some people in the room again. Obviously, COVID pandemic has changed us. It's not fully crowded here. For those of you who still prefer to work from home or are sitting in your office, grab a coffee and enjoy today's presentation. I'm CFO, now CEO, Espen Eldal. I knew that would come sometime. Joining me today is CFO Stina Byre, who will give you the financial details, and IR Officer Trine Engløkken, who will manage the Q&A session. Peak season on the back of another record quarter. In the third quarter, we increased revenues, we grew the gross margin, and we delivered a record high EBITDA for the quarter. Our financial position is solid, and we have completed the Lekekassen transaction.
Our customer club, MER, is approaching 1 million members, and as I said, we are ready for Christmas. During this quarter, we have seen solid campaign and seasonal execution. We managed to shift from the peak season where we are really relevant to the consumers to the low season. Historically, August and September, that is tough months for retailers, and you really have to fight for the customers. Especially this year when we see that the border is open again, you get more competition. The way that we managed to shift the focus, gradually scaling the summer season down and then building the focus on consumables at low prices to drive traffic, was really impressive the way we did that during this season. In the quarter, we've also seen strong growth in the categories that we have upgraded lately.
The kitchen category was upgraded last year, continued to show very strong figures and contributing to the growth we had in the third quarter, and we see the same for the home and interior category that we upgraded earlier this year. I will come back to more category upgrades because we are continuing to focus on this. I think when you look at the pandemic, the Norwegian retail, of course, driven by the closure of borders, people staying more at home, not traveling, so you increase the consumption in private households. In this market, there are many market winners. The groceries has done well. Of course, do it yourself and of course, the state monopoly has done great sales figures. Discount-driven retail has also thrived in this market, growing by 17.4%.
In this sweet spot of the market, Europris has had a growth of 30.2%, so we are outperforming the market and taking market shares. In the quarter, we have made a change to the management team, and we have actually sharpened the focus on strategy and sustainability. Renate Brattested Spernes has been appointed Vice President for Strategy and Sustainability. Renate comes from Orkla. She's been with Europris for a couple of years, so internally recruited, and following Kristine Frøberg, who has left for another vice president within HR in another company. This HR responsibility in Europris certainly that this will be a tradition that we every year will offer shares to the employees going forward. Because having your employees also as shareholders, I think is a big value and asset for the company.
With that, I leave the word to Stina to give you the financial details.
Thank you, Espen. We're very pleased with the sales development in the third quarter. The sales growth was driven by the basket, both from a higher number of articles in the basket and also from high-value seasonal items. It has been a fantastic journey for our MER customer club, and we're very proud of the job that our store employees has done when it comes to recruiting. The club was founded in 2019, and over the course of just a couple of years, we're now approaching 1 million members. Online sales in the quarter, which NOK 30 million was from europris.no, and this represents a growth of 77%. Customers mainly bought higher value seasonal items and preferred to buy them as click and collect.
Lekekassen was consolidated as of August, and year to date, they've had growth in both sales and profit. Their main quarter is the fourth quarter, where they have around 60% of annual sales. The gross margin was 45.7% in the third quarter, and this is an increase of 1.8 percentage points. We benefited from a fixed agreement for inbound freight, and we also had positive effects from the product mix, with a higher share of seasonal items this year compared to more groceries last year. There has been a delay in stock taking, and we only counted 18% of the stores this year, compared to 55% of the stores last year. We had positive effect from leased own subsidiaries. We also had higher distribution costs from the product mix, with larger and more costly products to handle and distribute.
We're very happy to have delivered yet another quarter with growth in EBITDA. Year- to- date, the growth has been 17.9%, and this is on top of strong results last year. We also had up to 93 of our stores closed during the first half this year, and we have had two, where we also then have consolidated Lekekassen that affect the numbers. Cash from investing activities was affected by the closing of the Lekekassen acquisition. Net debt was NOK 3.1 billion, and excluding lease liabilities, it was NOK 1.2 billion. We exit the quarter with a solid cash and liquidity position of more than NOK 1.2 billion. Gonna hand it back to you.
Thank you, Stina. Important job is to secure traffic to the physical stores. All these areas are important, and when you look at strengthening price and cost position, we exist due to low prices, so we have to focus on the value chain, we have to focus on the purchase price we have. In order to have the lowest prices, you must have the lowest costs. We've worked with the new warehouse, which is progressing and coming to an end when it comes to the construction. We have experienced very high growth lately, and we see that we need more capacity in order to handle the future selling summer seasons. We have prolonged the rent at the old central warehouse in Fredrikstad, but at a lower price for the coming seasons.
We will come back with more details on both the CapEx and the operating expenses with this project at a later stage. On the shuttle system, we see a slower ramp-up of the system. We were planning to do parts of the Christmas seasons in the system, but we had some software issues which has delayed the ramp-up. As we speak, we get some positive overall savings, they remain intact. On ÖoB, we have not been able to reach an agreement on the 2019 EBITDA, and an arbitration process has been initiated by Europris. We also have an arbitration process on a disagreement on the 2020 numbers and how Europris are allowed to challenge those numbers. That arbitration is scheduled for the first quarter of next year.
When it comes to the financial performance, ÖoB had improving customer experience, that is extremely important and category upgrades is a central part of this and this is what we do to drive the like for like growth in the stores. As I said, we have done some successful projects when it comes to home and interior, the kitchen upgrade, and this quarter we launched an upgrade in the chocolate and the snack category. We are adding more color, more fun, making this shop in shop more attractive, being a little bit more playful, a really nice and fresh chocolate and snack category in the coming years.
We have also started two other projects which might seem very small, but it's, you know, in retail, it's everything, it's the small things you do. Project one is to improve the store readiness ahead of campaigns. You know, we have been doing these campaigns for more than 30 years. We are close to 30 years. This is what we do as a retailer. We are a campaign-driven low pricer. All the merchandising, the volumes we do, you might see some retailers giving out leaflets promoting offers, but they're hard to find in the stores. When you come to Europris, I want these best offers we have on this front page. This is what you should meet when you come to the stores. It should be plenty full of stock.
We get, you know, really upset if we're sold out. Even if you come late in the campaign period, you should find your goods. But then you need good routines to make sure that your decisions will help, not only drive sales, but also make it easier for the store staff to handle the campaigns and doing all this work. Project two is about improving the process of restocking stores. A majority of the time in the stores by the employees are spent on handling goods. If we can make this more efficient, we can save a lot of time that we can reinvest into more customer service and more sales for the sold out, and it will be continued to roll out to all the stores over the next six to nine months.
I'm really. You know, this is a detailed project, but I'm sure that it will also drive sales, but also make it more efficient for the store staff to work. On driving customer growth, of course, Stina talked about the customer club MER, which is of course the very important tool to drive customer traffic using the online tools we have. But still, the physical stores is very important. We opened one new store in the quarter. I think I've talked about before that when we open stores, we prefer to locate next to a grocery store or other retailers. I think having some competition nearby is positive because it will help both concepts to drive traffic.
A recent study by Norges Handelshøyskole actually showed that the grocery stores also benefit when an Europris store opens next to. When Europris opens a new store or relocates. We have now close to 100 stores relocated next to grocery stores. To summarize and look at the outlook, I also started with that. We are fully stocked and prepared for the Christmas season. I think we have not been affected by the global distribution challenges that has been seen in the market. Of course, to secure flow of goods, we will ship some goods earlier that will also drive inventory. Negotiate a new agreement for next year, and that is still pending. I think Europris is well positioned to exploit the market opportunities.
We have been through the pandemic, but I think we are coming out as a stronger company. We have used and spent the time very well. We have positioned ourselves better in e-commerce with the Lekekassen customer acquisition. We have upgraded important categories and we have also built on the momentum and expanded our customer club. I think we are well prepared.
Here, the first one is, Ole Martin Westgaard, DNB. Actually, it's four questions, so I take one at a time. How has the trading been in October relative to last year, and what is your expectations with regards to a normalization of the sales trend? Do you expect this to play out in Q4?
We will not comment on the sales in the fourth quarter. We will report that later. We are well prepared for the Christmas season. We are fully stocked. I think normally looking at the, you know, the daily infections reports we get, you know, when it will be normal, I'm not sure, you know. It will be slower than we expect, I think.
How do you see a competitive environment? Is your inventory position an advantage relative to competition?
I think it is. Having goods in stock at this time, that is, an asset.
What can you tell us about the new members in the customer club? How do they compare to the members pre-pandemic?
To give an exact number on that, but as we have said, a large part of the improvement this year is from this agreement. We also have some other positive effects, but a large part of the improvement is from that.
The next question is from Petter Nystrøm, ABG. I did not catch what you said on ÖoB. Why are you not able to conclude on this matter?
We have not agreed.[An external accountant made...]
To you. Should we expect a gross margin more in line with the historical average around 43%, or do you expect rising raw material costs to have a more negative effect?
No, I think you should look more to the historic numbers.
That's all from the questions side. No one in the here physical that wanted.