Isetan Mitsukoshi to Close Six Stores

Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd. (Tokyo), Japan’s largest department store chain, has announced it will close six stores next year.

Reacting to a weak Japanese consumer goods market, the retailer – the product of a merger earlier this year between Isetan Co. and Mitsukoshi Ltd. – will close a Mitsukoshi store in the busy shopping neighborhood of Ikebukuro in northwest Tokyo in early 2009 and another five Mitsukoshi stores, located outside major cities, in the spring.

According to a Reuters report, Japanese department stores have been struggling to maintain profits in the face of a shrinking population, weak economy and growing competition from rivals such as drugstores and suburban shopping malls.

Japan's overall department store sales have declined for the past 10 years, during which nearly $14.2 billion in sales, or nearly the entire sales of the country's largest chain, has disappeared, data by Japan Department Store Association shows.

“We have determined that we will not be able to keep these stores in such a tough time,” said the retailer’s president, Kunio Ishizuka. The company will also close three stores in Germany; it has been operating seven stores in Europe.