Time to start the third quarter financial results announcement of ZOZO for FY 2023, ending in March 2024. We will only be offering live streaming this time. We plan to have the session until 5:30 P.M. After that, we will have a Q&A session with institutional investors on a separate Zoom channel from 5:40 P.M. I'd like to introduce the presenter, Director, Executive Vice President, and CFO, Koji Yanagisawa. Now, CFO Yanagisawa will take us through the business results.
Hello, everyone. I'd like to walk you through the financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal year, ending in March 2024. The presentation document we will be using today has already been uploaded to the IR page of our website, so please take a look. Let's jump right in. Here are the highlights of this quarter.
As for the third quarter, FY 2023, our gross merchandise value, GMV, rose by 5.1% year-on-year, amounting to JPY 427.1 billion. Our GMV, excluding other GMV, went up 7.4% year-on-year, landing at JPY 399.4 billion. Operating profit rose by 2.4%, landing at JPY 45.6 billion. Operating profit margin, OPM, was 11.4%, decreasing by 0.6 points year-on-year. GMV for ZOZOTOWN business trended slightly lower than the plan, impacted by the abnormal weather, including warm winter. But GMV for Yahoo Shopping, thanks to the effect of active promotions, trended higher than the plan, and the GMV of the total business is generally progressing as planned. OP continues to trend higher than the plan.
Both GMV and OP are at record highs for the third quarter. The progress rate against the company plan is 74.6% for GMV, excluding other GMV, and 76.2% for OP. Here are the quarterly consolidated financial results on page 10. In the third quarter accounting period, GMV, excluding other GMV, increased 9.2% year-on-year. Although the impact of the abnormal weather was strong, we managed to implement promotions at the right time when demand was rising, and this proved to be effective. Our operating profit, mainly because, the expenses related to the new logistics base are now fully recognized, decreased by 3.8% year-on-year, but this was factored in during the planning phase. OPM turned out to be 10.6% for this quarter. Next, I'd like to share the details of our business results.
This is page 11. Let's look at the increase-decrease analysis of the operating profit as of the end of the third quarter. OP was JPY 44.63 billion in the previous FY. In FY 2023, it amounted to JPY 45.69 billion, up by approximately JPY 1.06 billion. Factors attributable to the growth of the OP were the main factors, JPY 8.28 billion coming from the gross profit growth, which is the result of ZOZOTOWN and Yahoo Shopping GMV expansions. The second one is JPY 1.34 billion from the sales increase generated by the advertising business. And JPY 1.5 billion from the growth of shipping revenue and others, coming mainly from the GMV growth. On the other hand, factors that drove down the OP are the following four factors.
First, JPY 2.23 billion from the increase in fixed costs impacted by the rise in the number of employees in logistics spaces. JPY 3.16 billion from the increase in variable costs that rose in correlation to the GMV. JPY 2.46 billion from the increase of the actual promotion-related expenses associated mainly with expenses to attract customers and point-related expenses. And lastly, JPY 2.26 billion from other expenses, such as the purchase of equipment to start the operation of the new logistics base, increase in cloud server expenses, and transferring of some outsourcing commissions to other accounts. Next, this is page 12 of the handout. Balance sheet. Consolidated balance sheet. Treasury stock was partially canceled in November 2023, as it was announced. As for the purchases that began in the same month, they are progressing steadily.
Next, this is page 18 of the handout. Quarterly GMV trend. Total GMV, excluding other businesses, increased by 9.2% year-on-year. Due to the warm winter, sales of outerwear and other winter apparel were sluggish, but the growth rate turned out to be the highest within this period. Next, this is page 22, the breakdown of SG&A. The SG&A to GMV ratio was 22.9%, up 0.6 point from the same period last year. The main factors that drove down the SG&A ratio are the following. First, the outsourcing commission decreased by 0.2 points due to the transfer of some expenses that had been included in outsourcing commissions in the previous fiscal year to other accounts.
Second, the order value turned out to be higher than in the same period of the previous year, and this resulted in a 0.2-point shipping cost decline. On the other hand, key factors that drove up the SG&A ratio are the following four factors. One, increased inventory supply and the warm winter deteriorated the stock turnover ratio and led to the lowering of operating efficiency, resulting in a 0.3-point increase in logistics-related expenses under payroll and staff costs. Second, new logistics space started its operation, and thus the rent expense increased by 0.2 point. Third, depreciation rose by 0.2 point, as the depreciation of the material handling equipment kicked off with the start of the new logistics space operation.
Lastly, others increased at 0.4 point, mainly due to the purchase of equipment for the new logistics space operation, an increase in cloud service, cloud server expenses, and a change in how to recognize the outsourcing commissions. Next, this is page 25, the actual promotion-related expenses trend. In this third quarter, our actual promotion-related expenses, which is the sum of the advertising expenses and point-related expenses, turned out to be 5.2% of total GMV. As of the end of this quarter, the YTD ratio of promotion expenses to GMV was 4.2%, which is generally as planned. Next, this is page 23 of the handout, OP and OPM trends. We started to recognize the expenses related to the new logistics space fully this period.
We also experienced a worsening of the operating efficiency due to the volume increase, and they led to higher costs, which pushed down the OPM by 1.5 points, landing it at 10.6%. Now, moving on to page 27 and onward, main KPIs of ZOZOTOWN. By the way, the KPIs hereafter do not include the results of our Yahoo Shopping or B2B business. It's only for the main ZOZOTOWN. The number of total buyers was up by 130,000 from the previous quarter, amounting to 11.69 million, of which active members was 10.73 million, increasing by 220,000. Guest buyers decreased by 80,000, finishing at 950,000.
Guest buyers continue to be on a downward trend as we continued to give points to those who newly register as members. Also, the promotion enhancement of for the active members is coming to fruition, and the number is steadily growing. Next, this is page 28, the number of shops on ZOZOTOWN. As of the end of the third quarter, the number of shops was 1,605, a net increase of 24 shops from the end of the previous quarter. We welcomed 48 new shops to our platform this quarter. To name a few, we now have luxury brands, Mulberry and Valextra, and footwear brand, Dr. Martens, and Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, and Shu Uemura from Nihon L'Oréal. Let's go to page 33 of the handout.
With respect to the average retail price, it was JPY 4,360, down by 1.7% year-on-year. The brands continued to increase their list prices for this fall and winter season, but the average retail price showed a decrease in the third quarter. The main factors are that outerwear and other expensive items did not sell as much because of the mild winter, and also the markdown ratio increased. Let's go to the next page, page 34. On the other hand, the average order value was up 1.8% year-on-year, landing at JPY 9,119. Although the average retail price decreased, the number of items purchased per order increased, pushing the average order value higher than in the same period of last year. The number of items per order increased?
Because we gave more days to free shipping on purchases over a certain amount promotions than last year, and the ratio of combined purchases rose on Sundays when multiple brands issue their coupons. Next, let's go to page 34. Here are the full year consolidated earnings forecast and dividends for the ongoing fiscal year. There is no change to the plan. Let's go to page 44. I want to add my explanation here. This is our logistics space expansion plan. To resolve the current operating efficiency deterioration driven by the volume increase, and to address the anticipated GMV growth, we plan to start renting Ibaraki 5 in April 2024. We will continue improving operating efficiency through in-house efforts, while strengthening dialogue with the brands to enhance consignment inventory quality. This Ibaraki 5 will be a base specializing in inventory storage.
This is the last section. There is no page for this. Last, lastly, I'd like to talk about the anticipated shipping fee increases. In light of the current international situation, depreciating yen, cost increases caused by labor force shortage and the so-called 2024 Problem, the need to offer a better working environment to the truck drivers while sustaining and strengthening transportation and shipping networks, we decided to accept a request from Yamato Transport to increase shipping fees. The price increase will come into effect from April 2024, and the extent of the increase will not be disclosed. For us to maintain our profitability, ZOZO is considering mainly the following measures: One, reduction of other costs through in-house efforts. Two, introduction of Slow Delivery, in which multiple orders are combined into one delivery.
And third, policy change of the shipping fee we receive from our customers. The Slow Delivery service is intended to mitigate the impact of higher delivery costs by consolidating multiple orders into a single shipment, and is scheduled to begin its test operation in March 2024. So we are finishing a little bit earlier than scheduled, but that will be all from me. Thank you.
This concludes ZOZO's financial results announcement for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending in March 2024. Thank you for your time and attention.