Women's and men's apparel demand sagged, with Isetan Co.'s Shinjuku Main Store seeing women's wear tumble 17.3 per cent. The drop was 11 per cent at Daimaru Inc.'s six major stores.
The department store chains are reviewing their prices and promotional campaigns in order to keep sales from unraveling further. Mitsukoshi Ltd.'s Nihonbashi Main Store drew roughly as many customers as a year earlier, but the number of items purchased did not increase as expected, failing to stop the sales skid.
Thanks to a spell of warm weather in April, "some stores now see signs of a recovery," says an official at Takashimaya Co. (TSE:8233). Despite this view, April's sales declines were only 1-2 percentage points milder than those in March at all but Mitsukoshi, which suffered a steeper plunge.
(Nikkei)

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