June not sunny enough as Uniqlo feels the chill

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jul 3, 2018

After all the excitement around its Roger Federer announcement died down on Monday, Tuesday brought more sobering news for Fast Retailing’s Uniqlo chain. The company announced that like-for-like sales fell last month in its biggest market, Japan.

It seems that the casualwear giant faced the same problem in its domestic market as many other fashion retailers have done around the world - the wrong kind of weather. 

It said that comparable sales, even with its online offer included in the calculations, dropped by as much as 4% year-on-year in June. Meanwhile sales at its physical stores fell by as much as 4.7% and total sales across the stores and the webstore were also down, this time by 3.6%.

The company said that the same-store sales decline in June came “as frequent cool weather dampened demand for summer items.”

Customer numbers were also down for a second month after having been much more buoyant since the start of its financial year last September.

It may not be major cause for concern but it does show that even the strongest chains are feeling the heat (or perhaps that should be the chill) of the current weak consumer environment.