S/ Watanabe Masayo, NNN Shanghai Correspondent: Although it’s raining today, many customers are here to visit the store for the last time.

Major department store operator Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings closed its Shanghai store on June 30 after 27 years of operation.

The company said the closure came as the lease for the building is expiring, and it made a decision by considering profitability and the business environment in the area.”

The store opened in 1997 as the company’s third outlet in China and posted its record sales in fiscal 2014. But it has been in the red for the past few years.

S/ Store employees: Thank you.

S/ Customer: My mother often brought me here to do shopping. It felt like the center of Shanghai fashion.

S/ Customer: (The store) symbolizes the 30-year era of Shanghai from the 1990s.

According to local media, 21 department stores in China announced their closures last year, and likely against the background of expansion of online shopping and consumers’ tendency to save money.