JCPenney Selling Toys

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
storewanderer
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Re: JCPenney Selling Toys

Post by storewanderer »

If they are doing so well with appliances why are they trying other new things that they have zero experience with and make no sense? They need to focus on something and actually try (for more than a few months) to make it work.

It is the same here in Reno. Zero staffing in appliances. The store is a disaster on the first floor (women's, kids, shoes, jewelry, Sephora all squeezed down there) but mysteriously looks great on the second floor (which just has men's, home, and appliances). About 1/3 of Women's clothing is clearance racks ala Ross and a disorganized mess with stuff all over the floor, etc.

I almost think being "in the mall" selling appliances is a liability for Sears (and it will be no different for JCP, if that is the case). Home Depot and Lowe's are often placed closer to houses, so a customer can more easily go there to look than to a mall store.

The way JCP has appliances set up here, on the second floor (with men's and home), at the 2:00 position, is terrible. The escalator drops you off in the 6:00 position and your back is turned to the area where appliances are. You cannot even see the appliances from most of men's clothing or many of the portions of the home department. You could, literally, go to JCP, get men's clothes, get drapes, get a vacuum, get kitchen items, then re-enter the escalator down (at 12:00) and literally never even see the appliances. If you are an established appliance retailer, you may be able to get away with this. But for JCP, which has low awareness among customers that it even sells appliances, the appliances need to be out there, in the open, making a scene, visible to as many customers as absolutely possible, to help spread the word that JCP sells appliances.

There was that time when people went to the mall to buy just about everything, before the advent of big big stores and power centers. I think the time for appliances in the mall has come and gone. Especially for someone like JCP who has limited staffing, sticks appliances up in a low traffic corner of the store on the second floor hidden, and just clearly is thrown there as a desperate measure to try something, anything, to avoid going out of business.
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