Uniqlo monthly sales dip in April as cool weather dents demand

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
May 7, 2019

If there’s one takeaway to walk away with when it comes to Uniqlo’s sales results it’s that the company is heavily dependent on the weather. Parent firm Fast Retailing has issued a string of monthly sales reports for the brand in its domestic Japanese market and each one has been affected by the climate.

And it was the same in April, although while some months have been boosted by the arrival of cold or hot temperatures, last month saw both comparable and total sales dipping slightly as “consistently cool weather weakened demand for Summer clothing.”

It’s a tale we’re likely to hear from a number of chains in Europe too as the early promising start to spring seems to have fizzled out slightly. For Uniqlo, that fizzling out meant that comparable sales dropped 1.7% while total sales (which includes the firm’s online operations) were down an only-slightly-better 1.6%.

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Customer numbers were down a little too last month and Uniqlo also said that the average purchase per customer was slightly lower than it has been in the year to date.

It wasn’t disastrous news, of course, even though the company had lowered its full-year outlook in early April. For the four months of this calendar year so far, the company has seen falls in two of them and rises in two.

But it continues to expand its store footprint and although it closed eight Japanese locations last month, it also opened 10. And its international rollout continues. On April 5, Fast Retailing opened its first Uniqlo store in Denmark, on Copenhagen’s Strøget Street.