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Japan’s June supermarket sales down 0.9%

July 24, 2008
By Ken Worsley


Japan’s supermarket sales fell for the third consecutive month in June, sliding 0.9% to 1.08 trillion yen, according to the Japan Chain Stores Association. These figures follow a 1.1% fall in May. Actually, when new shops (those opened within the past year) are included in the data, supermarkets saw a 5.0% decline in sales.

As we continue to see almost every month, outside of food sales, supermarkets are not doing very well at all. Here is a breakdown of June’s adjusted figures:

  • Food: +2.4%, 62.0% of total revenue
  • Household Products: -4.5%, 19.6% of total revenue
  • Clothing: -9.8%, 12.2% of total revenue
  • Miscellaneous Items: +2.0%, 5.9% of total revenue
  • Services: +0.2%, 0.4% of total revenue

Sales per square meter fell 2.8% to 47,745 yen.

The survey included 8,713 stores owned by 73 companies, for an increase of 68 shops over a year ago. The total number of employees has fallen 6.0% in the last year, to 419,863.

Although supermarkets fared much better than department stores in June (which saw a 7.6% fall in sales), both continue to see a fall in clothing sales, with a 9.8% slump at supermarkets and a whopping 14.0% fall at department stores. It has been speculated that higher July temperatures might cause a rebound in clothing sales this month. According to the Mainichi:

The sales of clothes that had remained sluggish have bounced back, aided by summer wear such as tank tops. The number of swimsuits sold by Ito-Yokado supermarkets over a nine-day period up to Tuesday was 40 percent more than the year before.

Then again, cherry picking a nine day period at one retail shop (did they have some special sales campaign?) may not be the best way to make projections. We’ll just have to wait one more month to see if the decline in clothing sales continues.

Filed Under Economic Reports, Retail, Supermarkets 

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One Response to “Japan’s June supermarket sales down 0.9%”

  1. Japan supermarket sales up 0.9% in July, first rise since February Japan Economy News & Blog - Business, Economy, Marketing and Economic Reports on August 25th, 2008 10:25 pm

    […] again, sales of clothing fell at supermarkets last month, despite predictions that better weather in July might have helped turn around such sales. Although July’s figures were much better than the 9.8% decline seen in clothing sales in […]

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