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Japan supermarket sales drop in December

The Japan Chain Stores Association, which unfortunately does not have any usable English pages on their website, is reporting a December fall in supermarket sales. This is the twelfth consecutive month of decline (on a year-on-year basis), and December 2006 sales figures fell by 3.8 against December 2005.

The association uses figures based on the combined sales of 85 supermarket chains which together run 8,865 outlets across Japan.

Every category listed in the report saw a fall in sales against totals from December in the previous year. Broken down by categories:

• Food: -1.2% (58.2% of total revenue)

• Household Products: -0.8% (22% of revenue)

• Clothing: -9.9% (13.1% of revenue)

• Miscellaneous Items: -17.4% (6.3% of revenue)

• Services: -44.5% (0.4% of revenue)

It is worth noting that the fall in clothing sales is in line with the decline in sales at Japan’s department stores in December 2006 and for 2006 overall. Japan’s supermarkets are also generally getting out of the clothing business. Many Seiyu shops in the Tokyo area have upgraded their facilities or built new stores and no longer carry clothing. In 2006, Daiei, another major national supermarket chain, also focused on food over clothing sales as part of its restructuring strategy.

So, the fall in clothing sales is somewhat to be expected, but the slack is not being picked up by food or household product sales.

Not mentioned in the report is whether or not the expansion of the “100 Yen Shop” businesses into the food market might have had a sizable impact on supermarket sales.

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