(Yicai) April 17 -- City Shop, a high-end supermarket chain in Shanghai, closed permanently due to financial difficulties, continuing the trend of brick-and-mortar stores shutting in China since the start of the year.

Due to dire operating straits over recent years, City Shop decided to wind up the company, it said in a notice obtained by Yicai from an insider familiar with the matter yesterday. All outlets have suspended operation, it added.

Ten time-honored department stores have shut or closed for renovation in China since the start of the year, Yicai found. Japanese retail titan Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings will shut its flagship department store in Shanghai's Westgate Mall on June 30 when its lease expires after 27 years of operations, it announced on March 25.

City Shop will resolve its remaining debt issues via legal means to guarantee creditors' interests to the greatest extent after suspending operations, it said. Employees' wages will be calculated as of April 15, with their social insurance payments ending this month, it noted, adding that their severance pay will be dealt with in accordance with the law after the company's winding up.

Set up in 1995, City Shop was one of the biggest retailers of imported food and daily necessities in the Yangtze River Delta. It owned 10 outlets in Shanghai during its heyday but impacted by the recent growth of e-commerce platforms and the Covid-19 pandemic, only three were still running before its complete closure.

Retail sales of consumer goods in China jumped 7.2 percent to CNY47.1 trillion (USD6.5 trillion) last year from the previous one, but supermarkets' retail sales dropped 0.4 percent to log a first fall since such data is collected, according to figures from the country's National Bureau of Statistics.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Martin Kadiev