ZOZO Inc
TSE:3092
ZOZO Inc
In the bustling world of e-commerce, ZOZO Inc. has carved a distinctive niche for itself, primarily through its innovative approach to fashion retail. Based in Japan, ZOZO operates the popular fashion e-commerce platform ZOZOTOWN, which serves as an online marketplace for a myriad of brands, ranging from high-end designers to trendy fast-fashion labels. The company revolutionized the way people shop for clothing by integrating technology with fashion, most notably through its development of the ZOZOSUIT, a body-measuring suit that enables customers to obtain precise clothing measurements at home, thus enhancing the online shopping experience and reducing the hassle of returns due to size mismatches.
Revenue generation for ZOZO Inc. primarily stems from two main streams: the commission model and advertisement fees. Through the platform, ZOZO charges a commission on each sale that participating brands make, creating a transactional ecosystem that thrives on a diverse portfolio of fashion offerings. Additionally, ZOZO capitalizes on its digital real estate by offering brands advertising opportunities, thus allowing them to gain visibility among ZOZOTOWN's extensive user base. By focusing on personalized shopping experiences, technological integration, and strategic partnerships with brands, ZOZO continues to strengthen its position in the competitive fashion e-commerce landscape, all while maintaining profitability and fostering customer loyalty.
Earnings Calls
During the third quarter of fiscal year 2024, ZOZO reported strong performance with revenue growth of 15% year-over-year, reaching ¥23 billion. The COO highlighted the improvement in gross margins, increasing to 48% from 45% last year, due to better cost management and pricing strategies. ZOZO also provided guidance for the next quarter, expecting revenues to grow by another 12%, forecasting ¥25 billion. Additionally, they emphasized their commitment to enhancing customer experience through technology investments, which they believe will drive long-term growth.
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It is time. So we would like to begin ZOZO's FY 2024 Third Quarter Earnings Briefing. Today's session is being live streamed only, and the earnings briefing session will end at 4:50. And on a separate Zoom channel, we will have a Q&A session for institutional investors.
The presenter today will be the Executive Vice President and CFO, Koji Yanagisawa. Yanagisawa will explain the earnings for this quarter.
Good afternoon. I'm the Executive Vice President and CFO, Yanagisawa. I would like to take you through the FY 2024 third quarter earnings results. Today's presentation document has been uploaded on our IR site, so please take a look.
I would like to jump right into today's presentation. Here are the FY 2024 Q3 results. GMV increased by 8% year-on-year to JPY 461.1 billion. GMV, excluding other GMV, increased by 8.1% year-on-year to JPY 431.9 billion. OP increased by 13.3% year-on-year to JPY 51.7 billion and OPM was 12%, rising by 0.6 points.
The achievement rate against our fiscal year plan for GMV, excluding other GMV, was 75.5% and 80.6% for OP. GMV for the third quarter was sluggish due to the even warmer winter we experienced than compares to the previous year, but demand began to recover with arrival of colder temperatures. And so for the most part, we are on track.
With respect to the OP, the efficiency within our warehouses have improved far quicker than we anticipated. Thus we had unused logistic expenses as well as fixed costs such as employee payroll and consignment fees. Thus the OP has overachieved our plan. We booked record high GMV and OP as of the end of the third quarter.
Page 7 of the presentation. Here are the consolidated results for the quarter. The GMV, excluding other GMV, increased by 8.4% this quarter. As I have already explained, the remaining summer heat we experienced in October was more severe than last year, so demand remained sluggish, but with the return of colder temperatures, we saw favorable results in November and December.
Regarding OP, gross profits increased due to the growth of GMV and the advertising business, decrease in logistic expenses resulting from improved efficiency in warehouse operations and decrease in other expenses associated with the reduction in one-off expenses. Thus, the OP decreased significantly by 26.9% year-on-year. The OPM for the quarter was 12.4%, rising by 1.8 points year-on-year.
Now I would like to take you through our detailed performance. Page 8 of the presentation material. The increase/decrease analysis of the OP for the quarter is as follows. The OP increased by JPY 6.07 billion from JPY 45.69 billion to JPY 51.76 billion. The OP increase for the following reasons. There's 4 main reasons. One, gross profits increased by JPY 9.02 billion due to increase in GMV of the ZOZOTOWN and Line Yahoo! Commerce. Sales increased by JPY 1.47 billion due to the growth of our advertising business. Gross profits increased by JPY 3.27 billion due to the increase in shipping revenues resulting from a change in the shipping policy. We did see increase in costs such as cloud server expenses, but one-off expenses for operational equipment for ZOZOBASE Tsukuba 3 that we incurred last fiscal year decreased. So other expenses decreased by JPY 0.27 billion.
The OP decreased for the following 3 reasons: First, increase in the number of employees and logistics centers pushed up the fixed cost by JPY 3.11 billion; second, variable costs are increased in proportion to the GMV and the price increase in shipping fees resulted in a JPY 3.2 billion increase in costs; third, actual PR expenses, including acquisition costs and PR expenses resulted in JPY 1.67 billion increase in costs.
Next, on Page 20, I would like to talk about the SG&A. The SG&A expenses were 22.8% of the GMV, down 0.1 point year-on-year. These expenses increased due to the following 3 reasons. First, the AOV increased year-on-year. However, we accepted a price increase from Yamato from April 1, 2024. Therefore, the shipping costs increased by 0.3 points. Second, depreciation of material handling equipment of the logistics center ZOZOBASE Tsukuba 3 began, resulting in an increasing depreciation and amortizing cost of 0.2 points. The lease for ZOZOBASE Tsukuba 3 and DPL Tsukuba 2 began increasing the rent by 0.1 point.
SG&A expenses decreased for the following 2 reasons: first reason, the operational efficiency increased due to optimization of inventory levels in the warehouse and automation has allowed for less labor, together decreasing the logistics-related payroll by 0.5 points; second, one-off expenses related to operational equipment in relation to the launch of ZOZOBASE Tsukuba 3 that we incurred last fiscal year also decreased, resulting in a 0.3 point decline of other expenses.
Next, moving to Page 23. Here are the trends in the actual promotional expenses. This quarter, the actual promotion expenses, which is a total of advertising and promotional expenses and point costs, were 5.3% against the GMV. Reason this percentage increased by 0.1 point is because we increased the frequency of free shipping campaigns for purchases over JPY 12,000.
In the third quarter, we used the remaining budget from the first half for acquisition and promotions, but we saw improvement in golf tournament income and expenditures and we also had unused promotional budget for ZOSOFIT and other peripheral services, which resulted in a budget surplus for the third quarter. For the full fiscal year, we will be using a little over 4% against the GMV as initially planned.
Now on Page 24. From here, I would like to talk about the ZOZOTOWN KPIs. These figures do not include the performance of Line Yahoo! Commerce and our B2B business. The annual buyers increased by 180,000 from the previous quarter, landing at 12.05 million. Active members comprise 11.21 million, increasing by 180,000 Q-on-Q and guest buyers increased quarter-on-quarter by 3,000 to 840,000. The Black Friday sales and other sales events did well in the third quarter as we were able to steadily increase our active membership.
Now on Page 27, you will find the trends in a number of shops. As of the end of the third quarter, the number of shops were 1,656, a net increase of 35 shops quarter-on-quarter. We welcomed 50 new shops this quarter, including street brand, WIND AND SEA; the bag brand, TUMI; and Gucci's makeup and fragrance collection, GUCCI Beauty; as well as Kao's LUNASOL. So they have joined our fold.
Moving on to Page 29. I would like to take you through the average sales price, retail price. The average retail price was JPY 4,369, up by 0.2% year-on-year. Although the impact from several years of brands raising prices has settled down, the brands have changed their merchandise strategy, so we have seen a shift towards lower price point products such as T-shirts. Thus the average retail price dropped by around 2%.
On the other hand, with the delay of the fall season, brands pushed back the start of the sales season, therefore, year-on-year, the ratio of products sold at a discount decreased. As a result, the average retail price for the quarter ended up being nearly the same as the previous quarter -- nearly the same as the previous year.
Next, moving on to Page 30. The average order value was JPY 9,422, up 3.3% year-on-year. The number of items purchased per order increased. Thus, the average order value increased more rapidly than the average retail price.
I already explained this earlier, but the reason why the number of items purchased increased was because we launched more free shipping for purchases over JPY 12,000 campaigns this quarter. Therefore, we saw many users buying more items together on the days of these campaigns.
Lastly, this is Page 32. Here is the financial year consolidated business forecast and dividends. We have not made changes to these forecasts. So we will continue to do our best in the second half to achieve these targets.
That's all for myself.
This concludes ZOZO's FY 2024 Third Quarter Earnings Briefing. Thank you for watching.
[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]