Uniqlo Japan's same-store sales fall 1.3% in August as cool, wet weather curbs demand

Fast Retailing said Uniqlo's directly run stores in Japan posted a 1.3% year-on-year fall in same-store sales, including online, in August, with total sales including online down 2.2%, according to the company's monthly sales bulletin, published on 2 September. The figures cover Uniqlo's domestic operations only: directly operated stores, excluding franchise locations, GU and the group's business outside Japan.

Behind the headline number, footfall did more of the damage than spending. Same-store customer numbers came to 90.9% of last August's level, a fall of just over 9%, while the average amount each customer spent rose 8.6%. Fewer people walked in, in other words, but those who did spent more once inside. Fast Retailing attributed the decline to the weather, saying in its sales comment that "lower temperatures and unfavorable weather conditions dampened demand for Summer items."

Four stores were excluded from the same-store calculation after being closed for more than a week during August: three in Kumamoto Prefecture, shut following the 28 July earthquake, and one in Chiba Prefecture, closed after heavy rain on 13 August, the company said. Separately, Fast Retailing recorded one Uniqlo store opening and one closing in Japan over the month.

August was not an isolated soft patch so much as the latest swing in an uneven year. The same monthly series shows sharper declines earlier in the year, too: same-store sales fell 14.1% in June and 6.6% in December, both steeper drops than August's, while other months surged, including a 25.1% jump in October. Even so, the fiscal year that closed at the end of August finished with cumulative same-store-plus-online sales up 5.1% on the year before. A single soft month, at Uniqlo Japan's scale, says less on its own than the shape of the year around it, and that shape so far reads as volatility around a rising trend rather than a genuine slowdown. Whether it stays that way depends on early autumn: the cooler weather that hurt shorts and short-sleeve sales in August should, in theory, start working in outerwear's favour instead.