JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
mbz321
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by mbz321 »

storewanderer wrote: January 3rd, 2021, 11:15 pm
I find it humorous that a 15-year old had never heard of JCP before. Had they never been to the mall? Or just never ventured down that dark hallway in the mall lined with vacant tenant spaces that led to JCP? I guess the chain hasn't done much marketing in the past 5 years or so.
Hey, It might have been the 15-year old's first time in a mall, the way things are today. The younger people I interact with certainly aren't casually going to malls. Target, TJMaxx, etc, maybe, but not a mall. Not that I blame them...I have only been in a mall once in the last several years and that was only because I was waiting on my car to be worked on at a mechanic within walking distance. I bought absolutely nothing.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by storewanderer »

mbz321 wrote: January 4th, 2021, 8:03 pm
Hey, It might have been the 15-year old's first time in a mall, the way things are today. The younger people I interact with certainly aren't casually going to malls. Target, TJMaxx, etc, maybe, but not a mall. Not that I blame them...I have only been in a mall once in the last several years and that was only because I was waiting on my car to be worked on at a mechanic within walking distance. I bought absolutely nothing.
That is a fair point. The mall is pretty passable... but I used to like the mall when I was a kid. There was an arcade, there were multiple places with toys for sale, there was a dollar store with toys and various odd cheap items I could get with coins, there was a pet store, there were places with various food/snack items; candy, ice cream, etc. I guess a lot of that is gone from today's malls.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by rwsandiego »

storewanderer wrote: January 4th, 2021, 8:07 pm That is a fair point. The mall is pretty passable... but I used to like the mall when I was a kid. There was an arcade, there were multiple places with toys for sale, there was a dollar store with toys and various odd cheap items I could get with coins, there was a pet store, there were places with various food/snack items; candy, ice cream, etc. I guess a lot of that is gone from today's malls.
You hit the nail right on the head - malls no longer cater to real people. I was seven when Woodfield Mall opened outside of Chicago. They had multiple toy stores, two bookstores, a Krege, an Osco, movie theaters, an arcade, several sit-down restaurants, plus Penney's, Sears, and Marshall Field's and a couple of hundred stores of varying price points. The main attraction for seven year old me was the fish tanks in the center court. You could walk into an area under the floor and look into the tamks at the same level as the fish. It was so cool! Adults and kids alike loved it. They hosted art shows, antique fairs, car shows in the parking lot. and the place was always packed. It still draws crowds, but it is not the attarction it once was.

To me, malls started their decline when they only wanted to have "upscale" shops and were no longer suburban community centers. When online shopping was on the rise, malls took out all the stuff that differentiated them from online retailers.

Circling back to the topic, the same could be said of department stores like JC Penney. Retailers typically offer non-standard sizes online only. There's one reason for me not to go to the store. The nicer home merchandise is online only, which is a second reason for me not to go to the store. If I have to buy online, there's no reason to buy it online at JC Penney.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by Super S »

rwsandiego wrote: January 4th, 2021, 10:48 pm
storewanderer wrote: January 4th, 2021, 8:07 pm That is a fair point. The mall is pretty passable... but I used to like the mall when I was a kid. There was an arcade, there were multiple places with toys for sale, there was a dollar store with toys and various odd cheap items I could get with coins, there was a pet store, there were places with various food/snack items; candy, ice cream, etc. I guess a lot of that is gone from today's malls.
You hit the nail right on the head - malls no longer cater to real people. I was seven when Woodfield Mall opened outside of Chicago. They had multiple toy stores, two bookstores, a Krege, an Osco, movie theaters, an arcade, several sit-down restaurants, plus Penney's, Sears, and Marshall Field's and a couple of hundred stores of varying price points. The main attraction for seven year old me was the fish tanks in the center court. You could walk into an area under the floor and look into the tamks at the same level as the fish. It was so cool! Adults and kids alike loved it. They hosted art shows, antique fairs, car shows in the parking lot. and the place was always packed. It still draws crowds, but it is not the attarction it once was.

To me, malls started their decline when they only wanted to have "upscale" shops and were no longer suburban community centers. When online shopping was on the rise, malls took out all the stuff that differentiated them from online retailers.

Circling back to the topic, the same could be said of department stores like JC Penney. Retailers typically offer non-standard sizes online only. There's one reason for me not to go to the store. The nicer home merchandise is online only, which is a second reason for me not to go to the store. If I have to buy online, there's no reason to buy it online at JC Penney.
I agree with all of this. Most malls today lack variety, and there is not a good balance of local and national retailers. The busier malls tend to be mostly national, while struggling malls tend to have mostly local operators in the inside corridors, with national retailers sometimes taking up anchor spaces. With that said, in some cases the presence of a Sears, Kmart, Target, or Montgomery Ward back in the day, provides the variety that is sorely lacking in the rest of the mall. Although Sears and Kmart have struggled for years, their stores did bring some foot traffic. The problem with many mall anchors is that they are focused almost exclusively on clothes. And with some of the older, bigger JCPenney, Macy's, and the like, many of which are in the 100K-200K square foot range, they could utilize all of that space better and could do a better job of stocking more sizes and other items. The last time I visited a JCPenney in a larger mall, I felt that their men's department was no better than the one in the 50K square foot store closest to me.

I do feel that malls could still do well, particularly in areas such as the Pacific Northwest which experience a lot of heavy rain during the winter months. But the malls have to have more variety. I feel the lack of variety alone is a big factor in why so many people have turned to online shopping. I do remember many smaller malls growing up that always had something interesting for everybody, something even larger malls have a hard time accomplishing today.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

My "childhood" mall was the Viewmont Mall on Route 6 outside of Scranton, Pa. It opened in the later half of the 60's and had a Sears on one end and a Grants on the other with a two-story Penney's in the middle. There was also a separate wing on one end without direct mall access which had a tavern, floor covering store, supermarket and a local chain fast food restaurant to which was later added a game room and a small(ish) theater. Sears and Penney's both also had large freestanding auto centers which both sold gasoline. My parents would go to the grocery store and I would take off into the mall on another treasure hunt. And when I got tired of that, I'd go to the game room since there was no such thing as Nintendo or Play Station. Heck, it was even before Atari or Colecovision. What a place for a kid growing up in the 70's. It was fun and it was safe. And mind you, this was all before food courts in malls became the rage. All that mall had was a small inline snack bar and that local fast food restaurant on the outside wing and that's it. All three anchors had restaurants as well. That mall is still going strong today and the only one left of the original anchors is Penney's (it will ALWAYS be Penney's in my vocabulary thank you) but given their troubles who knows for how long. The Grants became Hess's which eventually morphed into Macy's and the Sears closed a few years back, was torn down and a brand new Dick's Sporting Goods and I believe Field and Stream store was built in its place. Somehow this mall is making it but I could see things going south there very fast if Penney's and Macy's end up closing eventually which is a very real possibility. Oh, and for the record, my recent mall "history" is spotty at best as well-haven't set foot in one in almost a year. Some of that is due to current health emergencies but there's really nothing there for me to buy anymore that I can't get at a big box store or in front of my computer at 2:00 AM if I feel like it. Bottom line is this-malls are NOT relevant anymore and as far as that 15 year old being completely oblivious to Penney's (and probably malls in general) it saddens me but it's hardly surprising.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by storewanderer »

Went into the Reno JCP, briefly. It still closes at 7 PM.

Entry was via the mall and the exterior facing doors while some were blocked, others had a sign on all of the 4 doors that said FIRE EXIT ONLY but those doors were unlocked and people were going in and out of those doors.

I was surprised but this time, the store was quite neat and orderly. Items were actually on the hangers/displays and not all over the floor this time (actually I didn't see any merchandise on the floor this time). This is the best this store has looked in a number of years. There was still very minimal staffing; I only saw one employee upstairs in the men's/home area, but downstairs they had 2 in Sephora, 2 in jewelry, 1 greeter, and 2 at the one open cash register station.
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Re: JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

Post by storewanderer »

Got into the Reno JCP Store again. As usual I had to hurry up with the 7 PM closing time. Only entry is through the mall interior. Macy's continues to be open until 9 PM.

The store is remarkably neater and more orderly than before. The clearance racks seem to be finally thinning out a little more. Many clearance items were marked 85% off. I did not see nearly as much stuff on the floor on the first floor in women's/kid's as previous visits (still saw a few things but not dozens of things like before). Men's area is still quite poorly stocked. One thing I thought was interesting is in a space at the edge of the department where they previously for a few years now kept coats they did something interesting. They put in a "Haggar" shop- it looks like the old Ron Johnson shops with a lit fixture, etc. I didn't see any other new "shops" anywhere else in the store. It still has the old carpet and racks but I thought this was interesting.

I actually found an item to purchase (85% off). I paid and it did not scan at the lowest marked clearance price. It scanned as being on clearance and at a price that came out to about 70% off (which matched a green tag on the item). The employee corrected the price immediately, without issue, and commented many of the pink tags were not coming up right for the past couple weeks (?????). Not sure what the deal is with this chain and items not scanning correctly.
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