Luxury Sales Drop 19% at Japan Dept Store in H1

Sales of luxury goods - including jewelry and art - at Japanese department store in the January-June period fell 19 percent to 3.213 trillion yen ($34.06 billion).

The drop in luxury sales dragged down total department store sales a record 11 percent, according to data released by the Japan Department Stores Association. The decline was the steepest for a six month period since 1965 when the association started to track sales. Sales in the six-month period totaled

“An unprecedented recession has been going on,” the association's Managing Director Seichi Iioka told a news conference.

Sales of clothing dropped 13.9 percent, while cosmetics sales declined 6.6 percent.

In June, department store sales declined 8.8 percent to 531.9 billion yen ($5.64 billion) on a same-store basis, the 16th consecutive monthly decline. The rate of decline, however, slowed to single digits for the first time in five months, according to the association.