Japanese department-store sales continue to drop

Japanese department store sales plunged 60 percent last month as the Covid-19 crisis saw retailers close or operate under reduced hours across the country.

Sales in the Matsuzakaya and Daimaru department stores were down 73.2 percent year on year, although that was an improvement on the 79.1-per-cent decline a month earlier.

Rival operator Takashimaya says its sales were down by 62.9 percent, while Seibu and Sogo reported a decline of 61.5 percent.

As in neighboring South Korea, duty-free sales have been severely affected by the absence of inbound mainland Chinese tourists. In Takashimaya’s duty-free division, sales fell by 98.7 percent.

As Inside Retail Asia reported yesterday, South Korean duty-free retailers temporarily shuttered metropolitan stores in response to a significant decline in tourist numbers caused by the coronavirus epidemic.

However, department-store sales there have shown signs of recovery as social-distancing restrictions were eased by the country’s government.