Chinese beauty e-tailer Jumei saw total orders decrease 5.9% in Q4 2014 to 9.6 million. The sales slump contributed to a decrease in total net GMV of 3%, which in turn fell to US$235.2m.
In a further blow to the company, gross profit declined 15.4% to $50.4m in the quarter. As a percentage of net revenues, this decreased to 30.4% from 42.6% in the same period of 2013. Meanwhile net revenues increased by 18.5% year-to-year to $166.0m.
Despite a decrease in total orders in Q4, there was an increase in the number of active customers, which grew 2.1% to 4.8 million.
Jumei’s full year results, however, remained buoyant. For the full year 2014, total net GMV grew by a healthy 30.9% to $1.07bn, primarily due to the increases in active customers and total orders; total orders grew 18.3% to 42.6 million overall, while active customers grew by 26.7% to 13.3 million.
Leo Chen, Founder and CEO of Jumei, said: "We are pleased to report a solid recovery of our business as we record our eleventh consecutive quarter of profitability on a non-GAAP basis. While fourth quarter 2014 was a full transitional quarter during which we no longer had beauty product marketplace business, we are very encouraged by the strong first quarter 2015 outlook that we are able to share with you today.
“The particularly strong sequential and year-on-year net revenue guidance indicates a strong recovery driven by Jumei Global, which witnessed rapid growth from late December 2014. Not only were we able to fully replace former beauty product marketplace skus with Jumei Global, we were also able to achieve what we believe is best-in-class quality control and customer satisfaction.”
He added: “Jumei passed every test with a 100% authenticity rating during multiple e-commerce product sampling tests performed by State Administration for Industry and Commerce in 2014. In a report published on March 13, 2015 by the China e-Business Research Center, a well-known independent e-commerce research firm, Jumei was among the two e-commerce companies out of 20 that achieved five star status and the highest levels of customer satisfaction in 2014. The report was based on a large sample size of approximately 100,000 customer feedback. By offering direct purchase from brand, competitive pricing and fast delivery speed, Jumei Global is currently the largest cross border ecommerce platform in China and a crucial part of Jumei's growth strategy in 2015."
