JC Penney Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection

[Alpha8472]

Sunvalley Mall must have panicked and gave JCPenney a good deal on rent. Due to the ban on indoor malls this mall has only one store open for instore shopping now: JCPenney. Sears never reopened and Macy's shut their doors. Supposedly, a small number of stores at the mall are doing curbside pickup, but very few customers want to do that. Just waiting around in the parking garage is an invitation to get carjacked or robbed. You are lucky if you shop at Sunvalley and your car is still intact when you finish shopping.

Whose idea was it for the mall to do curbside pickup in a dark parking garage?

Many malls want to ditch the indoor format. They are probably ready to knock down those walls and turn it into an outdoor mall.

[storewanderer]

Hard to believe they seem to be rolling back store closures... but with as long as they were able to put off bankruptcy I guess it should not be surprising. It still does not change that this chain is broken beyond repair and very poorly managed.

However I will say something positive. This week I went to Elko, NV. There is an old run down JCP out in Elko from the 70's or maybe older. Old brown carpet from the 80's and off white floor tiles in the main aisles make for an experience that pre-dates me. Still has a closed auto repair bay in the parking lot. Anyway the store is probably 40k square feet but it is actually very well stocked and orderly. Some racks I looked at even had sizes reasonably well organized. Nothing was fallen on the floor. They had a couple of fitting rooms open as well. This place is packed to the gills with merchandise. The people working there were friendly as well. The store had a good amount of customers, at least 15 or so in the middle of the afternoon.

Elko also has a brand new Kohls at the other end of town from the JCP, which opened in about 1/3 of the former Kmart. It is 40,000 square feet. The store has an open ceiling and a "modern" feel inside. I was surprised how small it was. Also the racks are spaced kind of far apart and are far from full. The store only had about 4 other customers shopping inside on a busy middle of the afternoon shopping period; nearby stores (Wal Mart, Ross, Marshalls) were all very busy. The store had more employees than customers. I hope Kohls will get more merchandise into the store and bring it up to the level of a typical Kohls, because this store didn't feel like a Kohls, and the JCP was much more useful simply due to being very well stocked. The Kohls was even worse than a Stage Store (Bealls, etc.) in terms of what it had to offer.

[mbz321]

Looks like JCPenney might be toast if this happens. 250 stores to be rebranded and merged with Belk, and the rest to be shuttered.

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/jpe ... bankruptcy

[TW-Upstate NY]

Combining two struggling retailers-now there's a recipe for success if ever I saw one

[SamSpade]

So, it didn't seem like this worked for Stage by rebranding and retooling Stage's many stores with grand reopenings as Gordman's.

Also, westerners have NO concept of what Belk is. I still remember seeing the 'Belk bowl' on TV and having to go search what in the heck Belk was.

I guess of the three reported interested parties, I'd pull just a little more for "Hudson's Bay" but we also know their department store chain that was similar to JCPenney went down the drain as well (Bon Ton, etc).

[storewanderer]

So, it didn't seem like this worked for Stage by rebranding and retooling Stage's many stores with grand reopenings as Gordman's.

Also, westerners have NO concept of what Belk is. I still remember seeing the 'Belk bowl' on TV and having to go search what in the heck Belk was.

I guess of the three reported interested parties, I'd pull just a little more for "Hudson's Bay" but we also know their department store chain that was similar to JCPenney went down the drain as well (Bon Ton, etc).

I've never been in a Belk. How are their stores? I've traveled to many places with a Belk but never went into one...

Isn't Sycamore the same group that runs Staples? That store has turned into such a zombie under Sycamore.

Also curious why they only want to keep 250 stores open. Maybe the plan is to do full remodels to these 250 stores and actually make them really great stores? And they can only afford to remodel that many stores? Maybe those 250 stores are at what are considered to be the remaining A malls?

If that is the case- find another buyer for remaining stores. I think those little small town 40k square foot JCP Stores are some of their better performing stores from what I see, under the current JCP format (run down outdated stores with high priced goods that lack anything beyond the bare minimum level of style and quality).

I don't see this working out at all. Why would they rebrand to Belk in the Western and Mountain States (and the East Coast?). Belk is a Southern brand. These are different markets. Very different markets. I also think JCP has a very different customer. I could see maybe eliminating JCP where there is overlap.

Maybe they have assessed that JCP is so broken that replacing it with a regional brand geared toward the Southern United States is a better bet. I do think JCP is very broken, but this is definitely not the answer.

How does Belk stand up against Dillards and Macys? Does it outperform them? Why shop Belk over Dillards or Macys (or Kohls)?

[BreakingThrough]

Also, westerners have NO concept of what Belk is. I still remember seeing the 'Belk bowl' on TV and having to go search what in the heck Belk was.

I can attest to this. I've lived my entire life in Southern California and never heard of Belk until I started visiting these message boards. When I first saw the name mentioned here, I literally thought it was in reference to the consumer electronics company with a similar name (Belkin). I was confused as to why a company that makes surge protectors would open retail stores. Obviously I figured out what Belk really is, but it was still a surprise to learn of a good-sized U.S. retail chain I had never heard of before. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

[rwsandiego]

So, it didn't seem like this worked for Stage by rebranding and retooling Stage's many stores with grand reopenings as Gordman's.

Also, westerners have NO concept of what Belk is. I still remember seeing the 'Belk bowl' on TV and having to go search what in the heck Belk was.

I guess of the three reported interested parties, I'd pull just a little more for "Hudson's Bay" but we also know their department store chain that was similar to JCPenney went down the drain as well (Bon Ton, etc).

Hudson's Bay didn't own Bon-Ton. Proffitt's bought several department store chains (Younker's,, Carson Pirie Scott, Bergner's, Boston Store, Herbergers), then bought Saks Fifth Avenue, remaned themselves "Saks, Inc," sold the mid-line in the North to Bon-Ton and Saks to Hudson's Bay. There might have been an intermediate owner of Saks, but you get the gist.

[pseudo3d]

Killing over half of the remaining JCPenney stores that would've otherwise survived bankruptcy seems like overkill. What are they doing, trying to beat Sears in a race to the bottom?

[storewanderer]

It is also tough to take Hudsons Bay very seriously after how they handled getting rid of Lord & Taylor.

I think I could support the Belk purchase of the 250 best mall locations, with closure of JCP in those 250 mall locations, full remodels to those stores to "Belk," then the spin off of the 400-500 "rural" JCP Stores that are profitable into some sort of stand alone company that can keep operating those at least for the time being.

I still have little confidence in Belk working as a national chain. I think Macy's is going to struggle to make it but do expect them to fight through, and Macy's has a much better known name than Belk.