Japan’s April Department Store Sales Down 1.3%

May 19, 2007
By Ken Worsley

Bleak news continues to come from the Japan Department Stores Association, who released their report on April sales at the nation’s department stores on Friday. Sales in April declined 1.3% year-on-year, after having fallen 1.5% in March. Once again, the JDSA is blaming unseasonable weather for the fall in sales. At this point, with a few more months of ‘unseasonable’ weather, people will simply have no clothes left and will have to walk around Japan in the nude.

The numbers include results from 276 shops owned by 94 companies nationwide. If sales at stores that were opened within the year to March 31, sales last month fell 1.9 pct from a year before, after a 2.4 pct decline in March. Sales at 28 department stores in Tokyo dropped 1.5% from April 2006.

Broken down by categories:

Sales of Clothing: -2.3%, at 39.9% of total sales
Sales of food: +0.7%, at 20.9% of sales
Sales of jewels and cosmetics: -1.7%, at 15.0% of sales
Sales of personal belongings: -1.2%, at 13.4% of sales
Sales of everyday household products: -3.5%, at 5.6 % of sales
Sales at store restaurants and cafeterias: -0.6%, at 2.7% of sales
Sales of miscellaneous items: +4.2%, 1.6% of sales
Revenue from services: +0.2%, at 1.1% of sales

I’m still not feeling bad for them enough to even walk in the door, let alone buy something. The funny part is that they are just too crowded for me.

Rumor has it that Tokyu is closing some of their department stores, including the Machida location in Tokyo. Can anyone out there verify that?

Filed Under Department Stores, Retail