Sogo takes its time with Kai Tak move

Eunice Lam

Sogo's department store in Tsim Sha Tsui will close on March 12, but its parent company said the move to Kai Tak will only happen by the end of this year.

Its parent company, Lifestyle International Holdings said the Kai Tak branch will be the new flagship store.

"The Tsim Sha Tsui store will cease operating on March 12 due to the lease expiring," it said yesterday.

The TST store is now holding a closing sale with products up to 50 percent off, while the Causeway Bay store will operate as usual.

The company has been hit by declining turnover since 2019, with sales volume at the TST outlet plunging 22 percent last year.

"We are worried that visitors brought in by the restoration of travel arrangements between Hong Kong and the mainland may not be able to bring a significant boost to the industry in Hong Kong in the short term," Lifestyle said.

But people online were not surprised by the closure, saying its location was not convenient. Some even said they did not know where the TST store was.

A Facebook user, Wong John, said: "The branch's location is not convenient, and its goods are not attractive, and it does not even have a supermarket. It should have been closed 10 years ago."

Another, Kenne Wong, said he spotted renovations at the Kai Tak branch.

Sogo Hong Kong was first established in 1985 and its original parent company was Sogo Japan. It was acquired by International Holdings after Japan's Sogo went bankrupt in 2000.

The TST branch first opened in 2005 underground at Palace Mall, which has since been demolished, on Salisbury Road. It closed in 2014 and relocated across the road to its current site later that year, next to Sheraton.