Uniqlo Japan sales hurt by warm weather in early October

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Nov 2, 2021

Fast Retailing’s Uniqlo brand saw more declining sales in October after a succession of months this year in which sales have dropped. Last month, its same-store sales including online fell by 4.8% year-on-year and total sales fell by 5.2%.

And the reason? Once again the weather played a big part, something that’s always crucial for a brand whose collections are very weather-dependent. 

The company said that “overall sales were stifled by warm weather in the first half of the month”. However, winter outerwear and its innerwear ranges “sold well in the second half of the month when the temperature dropped”.

The company could take some comfort from the fact that customer numbers were ahead of the year to date and customer average purchases were on a par with the rest of the year.

Additionally, at the end of October, a total of four stores remained temporarily closed and 34 stores were operating shorter working hours due to Covid-19. Stores that were either open for fewer hours or temporarily closed haven’t been excluded from the data collection, suggesting that once all shops are back operating normally, the sales picture could be better.