News Shimane’s last department store closes after 65 years

Sad news: Ichibata Hyakkaten, Shimane's last department store in operation, closed its gates last Sunday. With the closure, department stores are now non-existent in Shimane, Yamagata and Tokushima prefectures.

Located in front of JR Matsue Station, the store had been the face of the prefectural capital, but was forced to close due to poor sales and a string of tenant withdrawals because of the COVID-19 pandemic. On its last day of business, the store was visited by many customers who were sad to say goodbye to their favorite shopping destination. The sky was cloudless and blue as shoppers gathered one after another at the main entrance, well before the store even opened at 10 a.m. As soon as the doors opened, the customers trudged to their desired sales area, which was lined with red tags indicating price reductions. Fumiko Tako, 81, a Matsue resident, had joined the line 30 minutes before the store opened. "It was a convenient place with everything," she said, while browsing inside the store she had become accustomed to. "Today I plan to buy food and clothing."

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The store opened in 1958 near the prefectural government's office building and moved to its current location in 1998 to attract more customers. However, due to the declining population, the opening of large retail stores in the suburbs, and the rise of online shopping, sales peaked at 10.8 billion JPY (USD 74.4 million) in fiscal 2001 and declined year by year since then. In addition, tenants, mainly apparel stores, withdrew one after another during the pandemic, and sales in fiscal 2022 fell to 4.3 billion JPY, 40 per cent of the peak level. According to the Japan Department Stores Association, there were 180 department stores nationwide as of November 2023, down 26 per cent from 10 years ago, when the figure was 242. As many as 17 prefectures have only one department store that is an association member.