JCPenney struggles

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

Post by storewanderer »

SamSpade wrote: September 29th, 2018, 11:17 am More unpleasant corporate news from JCPenney this week:
https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/28/news/c ... index.html
The company is now missing a CFO and a CEO. Who is on that company board? :-? The stock price is approaching Sears.

It's interesting how whenever the media reports on JCPenney, the photos used tend to be pre-2011 changes or during the Johnson era (ie. this JCPenney paper shopping bag with the red, white, blue JCP logo).

Things that happened under Ron Johnson's management that other retailers have used:
  • Ellen deGeneres as spokesperson - Walmart is now doing this, although somewhat quietly and online only that I've seen (unless on Ellen's daytime talk show too)
  • Trying new or different brands as 100% replacements - Walmart's women's and children's departments (men's simply "refreshed" George), Kroger's "dip"
  • Everyday pricing without coupons - WM was already that model; Kroger appears to have adopted it in apparel when introducing "dip"
  • Popup stores within stores - mainly higher-end places like Nordstrom
  • Mobile checkout - well, to be fair, I think Nordstrom Rack had this first.
Looking back, I think Ron had many of the right ideas. He just failed to execute properly. Too much was attempted too quickly for this old dinosaur and its customer base.

Let's think about the situation had Ron not done what he did. He did "remodel" many stores, those "shop" areas within many stores. Had those stores not been remodeled, many would still have the nice 80's orange carpet they had before the "shop" project. Then there is the Sephora program which came from his period, something the company has been claiming is a great success from day one. Had they not done that program, their traffic counts would be even worse than they are now.

Then there is also that Ron destroyed the company's financials...

One area where Ron really screwed up was changing sourcing on some of the house brand clothing to cheaper sources. Old Stafford dress shirts were a much better quality material and knit prior to the inventory turnover taking place upon implementation of his "price cut" program and the new "price cut" items came in. I believe this was done on private label goods throughout other departments as well.
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Re: JCPenney struggles

Post by cjd »

My older Stafford shirts from 2008 breathed better than the newer ones. The latest ones I bought, maybe 1-1/2 or two years ago, weren't the Super Shirt (I don't even think I saw any) but they are very hot and just don't have the details that my older ones from maybe 5 years ago had.

It also seems, at the store here that after it reopened, a lot of the merchandise is lower end. For example, the young mens dept is almost all $5 tank tops and T-shirts, you would expect short sleeve button downs for summer as well, but there are none. There also seems to be a large amount of clearance items that aren't moving out.
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Re: JCPenney struggles

Post by Super S »

JCPenney has a new CEO:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/jc-penn ... s-ceo.html

Interesting background, but it's worth noting that JoAnn has been updating many of their locations.

At least JCPenney isn't stuck with somebody whose mission is to run the chain into the ground. Honestly, there is a good possibility that they will outlive Sears at this point.
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Re: JCPenney struggles

Post by arizonaguy »

Super S wrote: October 4th, 2018, 9:24 am JCPenney has a new CEO:

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/jc-penn ... s-ceo.html

Interesting background, but it's worth noting that JoAnn has been updating many of their locations.

At least JCPenney isn't stuck with somebody whose mission is to run the chain into the ground. Honestly, there is a good possibility that they will outlive Sears at this point.
I think the background works better here than some of JCPenney's past CEOs who were most notable for their work at Apple and Home Depot. JoAnn and JCPenney have a similar core customer (although it's a demographic that both stores need to eventually move out of).
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Re: JCPenney struggles

Post by storewanderer »

The Reno JCP was packed tonight with lines all over the store, except appliances which was deserted except for two employees. Every single cashwrap had every register open and even then the lines were 10 (home area)-25 (women's) customers long. Transactions did not appear to be particularly large as a whole, but I did see a good number of customers going out with 2-3 bags. The store is a mess and a lot of the merchandise looks like junk. There were at least a half dozen employees trying to pick up the store.

The Reno Macy's was also very busy in the same mall.
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Re: JCPenney struggles

Post by babs »

storewanderer wrote: November 22nd, 2018, 10:56 pm The Reno JCP was packed tonight with lines all over the store, except appliances which was deserted except for two employees. Every single cashwrap had every register open and even then the lines were 10 (home area)-25 (women's) customers long. Transactions did not appear to be particularly large as a whole, but I did see a good number of customers going out with 2-3 bags. The store is a mess and a lot of the merchandise looks like junk. There were at least a half dozen employees trying to pick up the store.

The Reno Macy's was also very busy in the same mall.
Black Friday is rarely a good indication of how the holiday season is going to go. Learned that lesson over many years of working in retail.
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Re: JCPenney struggles

Post by storewanderer »

babs wrote: November 22nd, 2018, 11:49 pm
storewanderer wrote: November 22nd, 2018, 10:56 pm The Reno JCP was packed tonight with lines all over the store, except appliances which was deserted except for two employees. Every single cashwrap had every register open and even then the lines were 10 (home area)-25 (women's) customers long. Transactions did not appear to be particularly large as a whole, but I did see a good number of customers going out with 2-3 bags. The store is a mess and a lot of the merchandise looks like junk. There were at least a half dozen employees trying to pick up the store.

The Reno Macy's was also very busy in the same mall.
Black Friday is rarely a good indication of how the holiday season is going to go. Learned that lesson over many years of working in retail.
Yes, even moreso now it is not a good indication with all of the sales going online as well. Macy's has a fairly strong online effort while that of JCP is painfully weak.

Also Kohl's did not seem to blanket the mail and newspapers with $10 off any transaction coupons this year. I did see some $5 off any transaction coupons floating around. The Kohl's was dead compared to how it had been in prior years. There was also noticeably less merchandise there, especially in housewares which in previous years had big pallets of cheap small kitchen appliances, vacuums, etc. but this year had just a few displays in the center aisle back there. But the merchandise that is there looks pretty good, unlike JCP which looks slightly above a Wal Mart clothing department in quality only due to the brands offered (their private label stuff is thin junk), and worse in neatness. Kohl's likely made a calculated analysis to determine that some of the promotions done in the past, while they generated traffic, just weren't worth it due to the impact on the overall store experience.
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Re: JCPenney struggles

Post by arizonaguy »

storewanderer wrote: November 22nd, 2018, 10:56 pm The Reno JCP was packed tonight with lines all over the store, except appliances which was deserted except for two employees. Every single cashwrap had every register open and even then the lines were 10 (home area)-25 (women's) customers long. Transactions did not appear to be particularly large as a whole, but I did see a good number of customers going out with 2-3 bags. The store is a mess and a lot of the merchandise looks like junk. There were at least a half dozen employees trying to pick up the store.

The Reno Macy's was also very busy in the same mall.
I noticed the same thing at the Paradise Valley Mall JCP here in Phoenix. The JCP was easily the busiest store at the mall (where the inline stores have about a 30% vacancy). I didn't end up buying anything as most of the "sale" stuff was, as you described, junk. They had a nice pair of shoes which I would've purchased (but the pricing wasn't great and I didn't want to deal with the line).

I actually went into the Sears store in the same mall (which is at the beginning of its closing sale as it was a late addition to the closing list) and purchased a few flannel and long sleeve shirts. It's a shame that Sears wasn't able to capitalize off of their private label brands as some of the private label merchandise there appeared to be a step or two above JCP in terms of quality. I really enjoyed the Roebuck & Co. private label men's line in particular.
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Re: JCPenney struggles

Post by arizonaguy »

storewanderer wrote: November 23rd, 2018, 12:20 pm
babs wrote: November 22nd, 2018, 11:49 pm
storewanderer wrote: November 22nd, 2018, 10:56 pm The Reno JCP was packed tonight with lines all over the store, except appliances which was deserted except for two employees. Every single cashwrap had every register open and even then the lines were 10 (home area)-25 (women's) customers long. Transactions did not appear to be particularly large as a whole, but I did see a good number of customers going out with 2-3 bags. The store is a mess and a lot of the merchandise looks like junk. There were at least a half dozen employees trying to pick up the store.

The Reno Macy's was also very busy in the same mall.
Black Friday is rarely a good indication of how the holiday season is going to go. Learned that lesson over many years of working in retail.
Yes, even moreso now it is not a good indication with all of the sales going online as well. Macy's has a fairly strong online effort while that of JCP is painfully weak.

Also Kohl's did not seem to blanket the mail and newspapers with $10 off any transaction coupons this year. I did see some $5 off any transaction coupons floating around. The Kohl's was dead compared to how it had been in prior years. There was also noticeably less merchandise there, especially in housewares which in previous years had big pallets of cheap small kitchen appliances, vacuums, etc. but this year had just a few displays in the center aisle back there. But the merchandise that is there looks pretty good, unlike JCP which looks slightly above a Wal Mart clothing department in quality only due to the brands offered (their private label stuff is thin junk), and worse in neatness. Kohl's likely made a calculated analysis to determine that some of the promotions done in the past, while they generated traffic, just weren't worth it due to the impact on the overall store experience.
It appeared the best deals at JCP were on their private label brands. It's a shame because about 5 or 6 years ago I went to JCP on Black Friday and ended up buying a decent amount of St. John's Bay merchandise that was fairly good quality (and I still wear today).

The name brands weren't priced particularly better than I've seen elsewhere.

The sale did seem to draw lots of traffic into their store though.
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Re: JCPenney struggles

Post by Super S »

I don't participate in Black Friday at all. With that said, one thing I have noticed about JCPenney and their stores in the Portland area is that, unlike Sears, they always have a fair number of customers in the stores. It doesn't matter what time of year. The problems tend to be disorganized stores and fitting rooms, and LONG checkout lines (They REALLY need dedicated areas for returns which are part of the long lines issue) I think they need to focus on improving the checkout experience, starting with adding at least one dedicated customer service area/returns desk/online order pickup area on each level. I have actually walked out a few times because of people at the registers making large returns, which was keeping people from being able to ring up customers. Most large stores do this. They also need to better staff the stores with floor people so that the departments are not in constant disarray.

I do occasionally shop at JCPenney, but have found that their regular prices are high when you consider the overall store experience.
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