Most pages that rank for this query just repeat one headline number and stop. That is not useful if you run a store. The reason to read a shipping and logistics company's 10-K is not the number itself — it is the structure. Matson organizes a $3 billion operation into about four expense lines, and you can organize yours the same way.
What Matson's 2023 10-K says about operating expenses
Matson's full-year statement, filed with the SEC, lays the operating expenses out like this (figures in millions, from the company's 2023 results exhibit):
| Line item | 2023 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Total operating revenue | $3,094.6 | $4,343.0 |
| Operating costs | $2,470.7 | $2,811.5 |
| General and administrative (SG&A) | $283.3 | $261.0 |
| Less: income from SSAT (joint venture) | ($2.2) | ($83.1) |
| Total operating costs and expenses | $2,751.8 | $2,989.4 |
| Operating income | $342.8 | $1,353.6 |
Notice there is no single "operating expenses" line. The headline total is built from parts, and the SSAT joint-venture income is subtracted because it offsets costs. That is the first lesson: "operating expenses" is a roll-up, not one number.
In its 10-K management discussion, Matson notes total operating costs and expenses fell by $237.6 million, or 7.9 percent, year over year, driven by an $81.2 million drop in Ocean Transportation and a $156.4 million drop in Logistics (Matson FY2023 Form 10-K). Revenue fell faster than costs, which is why operating income collapsed from the prior year.
Operating costs vs. SG&A: the two buckets that matter
Every operating statement, from Matson's to yours, sorts spending into two groups.
Operating costs are what it takes to deliver the thing you sell. For Matson that is vessels, fuel, terminals, and crews. For you it is product cost plus the fulfillment and shipping you pay your supplier — the direct cost of each order going out the door.
SG&A (selling, general, and administrative) is everything that keeps the business running but is not tied to one unit: advertising, salaries, software, rent, insurance. SG&A sits below your direct costs and above operating income on any income statement, which is the same place it sits in Matson's.
The split is worth internalizing because the two buckets behave differently. Operating costs scale with volume — more orders, more cost. SG&A is stickier, and it is usually where margin leaks hide. If you want a deeper walkthrough of that second bucket, our guide on how to analyze operating expenses breaks it down line by line.
Operating expenses as a share of revenue
The dollar total tells you almost nothing without revenue next to it. The number that actually moves decisions is operating expenses as a percentage of revenue.
Run Matson's 2023 figures: operating costs of $2,470.7M ÷ revenue of $3,094.6M = 79.8% of revenue. SG&A of $283.3M ÷ $3,094.6M = 9.2%. Together the total $2,751.8M ÷ $3,094.6M = 88.9% of revenue, leaving an operating margin of $342.8M ÷ $3,094.6M = 11.1%.
Now compare to 2022: total costs of $2,989.4M ÷ $4,343.0M was 68.8%, for a 31.2% operating margin. The company's costs did not blow up — revenue fell while costs stayed heavy, so the ratio got worse. That is the exact failure mode a store hits when ad costs rise or AOV slips: the dollar spend looks normal, but the percentage quietly eats the margin.
How a POD operator reads the same statement
Here is the same structure rebuilt for a store. Say you run 340 orders a month at a $31 average order value, with $2,800 in monthly Meta spend. This is an illustrative worked example, not market data.
Start with revenue: 340 orders × $31 = $10,540 per month.
Operating costs (your "cost of services"). This is product cost plus the shipping you pay your supplier — your direct per-order cost. Say that blends to $14 an order: 340 × $14 = $4,760.
SG&A. Advertising is the big one here: $2,800 in Meta spend, plus roughly $150 in platform and app subscriptions, for $2,950.
Roll it up the way Matson does:
| Line item | Monthly | % of revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $10,540 | 100% |
| Operating costs (product + fulfillment) | $4,760 | 45.2% |
| SG&A (ad spend + software) | $2,950 | 28.0% |
| Total operating costs and expenses | $7,710 | 73.2% |
| Operating income | $2,830 | 26.8% |
Those percentages (4,760 ÷ 10,540 = 45.2%, and so on) are the numbers to watch month over month. If operating costs drift from 45% toward 55% because a supplier raised prices, you see it instantly in the ratio — long before it shows up as a scary dollar figure. For the fulfillment half of that bucket specifically, our playbook on how to reduce fulfillment costs is where to start.
Two POD-specific notes the Matson statement glosses over. First, your product cost is unrecoverable on a refund — a printed item cannot be restocked — so a chargeback or return is a full loss of that operating cost, not a partial one. Second, getting the cost line right matters: the clean way to book it is covered in recording cost of goods sold, and the math behind it in the cost of goods sold formula.
Turning the structure into a monthly habit
A 10-K is a once-a-year photograph. Your store changes weekly, so the real value is running this breakdown every month and comparing ratios, not dollars.
The hard part is that your cost data lives in three places: product and shipping cost in Printify, Printful, or Gelato; revenue in Shopify; and ad spend in Meta and Google Ads. Stitching those into one operating statement by hand is the chore that stops most operators from doing it at all. The ecommerce ops economics hub maps how all of those pieces fit together.
Victor, the AI employee inside PodVector AI, pulls from exactly those sources — Shopify, Meta Ads, Google Ads, Printify, Printful, Gelato, and Klaviyo — and computes your true per-order profit, so your operating-cost and SG&A ratios are always current instead of a month stale. It delivers the breakdown as a report to your Google Drive, and every write action it takes is approval-gated. You can put Victor to work on your store's numbers and get the statement built for you.
FAQs
What were Matson Inc's total operating expenses in 2023?
Matson reported total operating costs and expenses of $2,751.8 million for full-year 2023, down from $2,989.4 million in 2022, per its results filed with the SEC. That total is the sum of $2,470.7M in operating costs and $283.3M in SG&A, less $2.2M of income from the SSAT joint venture.
Why did Matson's operating income fall so much if expenses went down?
Because revenue fell faster than costs. The 10-K shows total operating costs dropped 7.9 percent while revenue dropped from $4,343.0M to $3,094.6M (Matson FY2023 10-K). When costs stay heavy and revenue slides, the operating-expense-to-revenue ratio climbs and margin compresses — the same trap a store hits when ad costs rise.
What is the difference between operating costs and SG&A?
Operating costs are the direct cost of delivering what you sell — for a store, product plus fulfillment and shipping. SG&A is overhead that is not tied to one unit, such as advertising, software, and salaries. Both are operating expenses, but they sit on separate lines and behave differently as volume changes.
How do I apply a 10-K structure to a Shopify or POD store?
Use the same three-part shape: revenue, operating costs, then SG&A, ending in operating income. Track each cost bucket as a percentage of revenue every month, not just in dollars. The ratios surface problems — a supplier price hike or a rising cost per acquisition — long before the raw dollar totals look alarming.
Where do I find the exact operating-expense lines in a 10-K?
Look at the Consolidated Statements of Income (Item 8) and the Management's Discussion and Analysis section, both in the filing on the SEC's EDGAR system. The income statement gives you the line-item totals; the MD&A explains what drove the year-over-year change, as Matson's does for its Ocean Transportation and Logistics segments.