CROOZ sold SHOPLIST after GMV slid from ¥28.2B to ¥17.2B in three years

SHOPLIST was CROOZ's flagship fashion EC mall, aggregating low-priced apparel brands for Japanese shoppers. It peaked in the year to March 2021 with roughly ¥28.2 billion in goods sold — then declined for three consecutive years, reaching about ¥17.2 billion by the year to March 2024.

The operating company's finances thinned with it: revenue of ¥6.85 billion in FY2024, down 4.5% year on year, and operating profit of ¥196 million only after a ¥98 million loss the year before. On 17 January 2025 CROOZ's board resolved to sell all shares in CROOZ SHOPLIST to MEDIQUITOUS, the Seoul-based operator of the fashion EC site nugu; the transfer completed on 28 February.

The exit came at a cost CROOZ absorbed itself: it waived part of the subsidiary's debt to it, booking a ¥311 million debt-forgiveness gain, and took a consolidated loss on the sale of roughly ¥243 million. CROOZ said it would concentrate resources on its IT outsourcing business, keeping only its own-brand apparel shop Ada.

Sold to Seoul's MEDIQUITOUS, waiving ¥311M debt and booking ¥243M loss, to focus on IT outsourcing.

The mall aggregated other brands' cheap fashion, so it had no product moat when low-priced competition intensified — GMV fell three years running.

CROOZ judged its capital better spent on IT outsourcing amid Japan's engineer shortage than on funding a shrinking mall.

The buyer wanted a Japanese base for its own fashion EC, so the exit found a taker — but only with part of the debt forgiven.

A mall that sells other brands' cheap goods owns neither the product nor the margin. When the price war moves on, differentiation must live in the mall itself — or it gets re-priced out of the market.

SHOPLIST continued under MEDIQUITOUS with a new president and a brand rebuild announced for 1 July 2025, the buyer targeting ¥100 billion in scale. CROOZ pivoted to IT outsourcing as its core business. The mall's trajectory — peak, slide, sale to a foreign operator — mirrored the wider squeeze on Japanese mid-market fashion EC.