Uniqlo June sales plummet year-on-year, but 2019 comparison looks better

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Jul 5, 2021

June wasn’t a good month for Fast Retailing’s Uniqlo chain in its domestic Japanese market. The company said same-store sales, including online, fell as much as 19.2% year-on-year and total sales across its stores and webstore fell an almost-as-bad 17.3%.

The sales drop came as customer numbers were lower than the average for the year and the average purchase per customer was down as well.

The events of 2020 and the ongoing Covid crisis in 2021 have made comparisons incredibly difficult for retailers globally. Lockdowns and lockdown-easing periods during 2020 have made direct comparisons with last year less illustrative of how businesses are doing generally and many have started to give two-year comparisons instead.

For Uniqlo, comp sales may have declined significantly last month when looked at against the “unusual” strong performance in June 2020, but they increased compared to the more normal June 2019. That two-year improvement was thanks to strong sales of its Ultra Stretch Active range, loungewear, and other items.

And the performance didn’t look quite as bad either given that by the end of June, five stores remained temporarily closed and 149 stores were operating shorter working hours due to Covid-19.