ZOZO · Year ended March 2026
Purchases outside ZOZO’s warehouses also shape its logistics-cost ratios.
ZOZO operates ZOZOTOWN, an online fashion-shopping site where consumers buy clothes from brands. A purchase can enter ZOZO’s logistics-cost ratios even when the clothes never pass through its warehouses. In the year ended March 2026 (April 1, 2025–March 31, 2026), packing and freight expense increased, while its ratio to merchandise value excluding Other fell from 6.5% to 5.9%. Holding clothes to sell them and directing shoppers to a store involve different work. That difference shows up in the figures.
Packing and freight: the amount and ratio move apart
The expense and the transaction value it is divided by
Years ended March 2025 → March 2026. Consolidated, company-reported figures. Expense and ratio: results presentation p.21. Denominator: financial results p.4.
Which purchases enter that denominator? Start with the path clothes take through ZOZOTOWN’s consignment business.
Clothes need warehouse work even when ZOZO does not buy them
Lyst connects a shopper with a listed store
Follow the clothes, then follow the shopper
Consignment and LYST’s affiliate model in the year ended March 2026. Each path follows a different kind of movement.
Consignment: moving clothes
- BrandEntrust clothes→
Entrust the brand’s clothes
- ZOZO logistics facilityDeliver clothes→
Store clothes and dispatch orders
- Shopper
Receive the clothes
LYST: directing a shopper
- Person looking for clothesFind an item⇢
Browse product information
- LystRefer to the store⇢
Use price and other information to direct the shopper
- Listed store
Complete the referred purchase
ZOZO physically holds consigned goods without bearing inventory risk under that model. LYST’s disclosure concerns its own logistics-related costs, packing and freight, and collection fees; purchases still require delivery. Line lengths do not represent merchandise value or revenue.
Securities report:Business models p.5Consignment p.96Affiliate model p.97Financial results: cost boundary p.5
Holding the clothes and directing the shopper
Consignment and LYST referrals in the year ended March 2026. The upper path follows the clothes; the lower path follows the shopper’s referral.
- Consignment: hold and deliver clothesBrand’s clothes → ZOZO storage and dispatch → shopper. The brand pays ZOZO the service fee.
- LYST referral: a purchase at a listed storeShopper → Lyst referral → purchase at a listed store. The listing partner pays LYST the fee.
Warehouse work and delivery terms improved too
Alongside the changed denominator, the disclosures describe changes in the work of handling clothes.
The costs that remain behind a lower ratio
How much of the cost of continuing to use warehouses and systems should remain in a profit measure? ZOZO itself announced a change in that view.
THE VIEW AFTER THE NUMBERS
What the numbers suggest
In the year ended March 2026, ZOZO’s merchandise-value total included both the clothes it held, sold and delivered and the purchases it referred to other stores.
Packing and freight expense increased, while logistics-related costs decreased. Both ratios to merchandise value excluding Other fell. Alongside LYST’s consolidation, the company cites better delivery terms and warehouse-work improvements for the respective cost lines, without quantifying each factor’s separate effect.
An equal value of clothes sold need not mean an equal amount of work for the company. Following merchandise value to the place clothes are stored, the work of dispatching them and the role of leading shoppers to a purchase makes ZOZO’s changing logistics-cost ratios readable through both operations and business mix.
Primary sources used
Consolidated Financial Results for the Year Ended March 31, 2026 (Japanese)
ZOZO · 2026-04-30
Pages used: p.4-5 / p.5 / p.7
Open source →Results Presentation for the Year Ended March 31, 2026 (Japanese)
ZOZO · 2026-04-30
Pages used: p.21 / p.33-34
Open source →Annual Securities Report, 28th Fiscal Year (Japanese)
ZOZO · 2026-06-08
Pages used: p.5 / p.96 / p.97 / p.118
Open source →