Japan March dept. store sales likely to drop record 40% on virus

Department store sales in Japan are likely to drop 40 percent in March from a year earlier, by far the largest margin on record, partly due to a plunge in the number of foreign visitors due to the outbreak of a new coronavirus, according to industry body data released Tuesday.Duty-free purchases are also expected to plunge 80 percent in the reporting month, the Japan Department Stores Association said.Until now, the record-high fall in same-store sales was 20.8 percent recorded in March 1998.Same-store sales decreased 12.2 percent in February for the fifth straight month, with the total num…READ FULL ARTICLE