Sales at department stores, supermarkets and convenience stores also declined in April. Sales at the Japan's largest retailers were down 2.2 percent from a year earlier, the biggest drop since July, today's report showed.
It is also worth remembering that since this data is not corrected for inflation, but is in real money terms, and given that inflation has been rising recently, this decline is a bit more pronounced than it might seem at face value. At the moment though it is clear that Japan household spending is losing momentum.
