Kohls and JCPenney Post-Pandemic

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Bagels
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Kohls and JCPenney Post-Pandemic

Post by Bagels »

My wife was dress shopping for a wedding over the weekend, so we hit up multiple Kohls and JCPenney stores. As i've previously mentioned, we had been in Kohls and JCPenneys twice each since the pandemic, with one of those visits coming last month.

Kohl's has commented that post-pandemic, it stores will be carrying less merchandise, but wow, what a reduction -- I'd bet that the stores we went into had half the inventory than pre-pandemic. In the 2010s, in many of its locations Kohls added toy and electronics departments, expanded product assortments (especially home appliances), began carrying more furniture, etc. which often lead to cluttered departments, with merchandise stacked on/blocking the walkways. But not anymore. The dedicated toy and electronic departments have been removed, and as a lot less merchandise is being carried, the stores are more spacious.

Some locations have added Sephora and (or) Calvin Klein. These stores had their entire sales floor rearranged; because of the space Sephora and CK takes up, the overall change is less noticeable. But in the stores that haven't received these updates, it's far more noticeable. Apparently Kohls has completely given up on young men's (YM), even removing the department from their website. At the unrenovated stores, the small space near the men's entrance/ behind the cash registers that was the longtime home for athletics is now home to a small selection of graphic t's and Vans / Hurley skater fashion. Athletics has been moved to the adjacent, larger area that was the longtime home of denim. Athletics are mostly name brand -- lots of Nike, Adidas, etc. Very few house brands are in-store, but TekGear and FLX (formerly 'Fila Sport,' which was a brand licensed by Kohls but produced in house) are readily available online. The former YM's section -- one of the most dense departments at Kohls, but clearance and luggage has eaten up much of the space in recent years -- is now the denim area. Most everything is Levi's and Lee, and some additional Levi's merchandise is located in here.

Given that skater & athletic brands along with Levi's are the most popular amongst high school & 20s in Southern California, the changes make a lot of sense. It no longer makes sense for Kohls to compete for fashion clothing (Urban Pipeline, its long-time in-house brand for YM fashion, has been discontinued).

The men's casual section remains where it always was, but with a lot less merchandise. High-priced, high-fashion clearance favorites like Marc Anthony are gone, which is probably a good thing :). The biggest change of all in men's is the former formal / business / professional wear (BW) department. Once the largest and most dense, it's been subdivided into three: what's left of it, a new big & tall and men's basics. Men's basics use to occupy a very large area, but numerous brands (including the house brands plus Fruit of the Loom) are no longer being carried in-store. Children's shoes have moved into the former men's basics, with men's and women's shoes now spread out more. Sadly, almost nothing remains in the BW department. This could be a local thing, since Orange County is largely WFH.

Meanwhile, at JCP... it looks just as it did pre-pandemic. I actually like most of the changes Kohls made -- few 20yo men are shopping at Kohls, but the ones that do may grab a Nike sweatshirt or pair of Levi's. Meanwhile, JCP is in full throttle to attract Generation Z with high-fashion, and it just isn't going to happen. Their high-fashion athletic/leisurewear line -- ridiculously named Sports Illustrated -- dominates the clearance ranks at 85% off.

The biggest disappointment with JCP is its prices. Its sticker prices are high -- US Polo Assn T's that were marked $20 ("every day" price) prior to the pandemic are now $35. Walmart sells many of these same t's for $9.99 everyday. A Fabrewear knife block I bought in 2019 (BF deal) that was marked $80 everyday is now $140. My favorite pair of Van Heusen dress pants were marked $40 everyday in 2009, $55 everyday in 2019... and $85 everyday in 2022. Yes, inflation is bad, but no it's not that bad. We ended up walking over to Macy's, where I could find a selection of "designer" brands for similar money.
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Re: Kohls and JCPenney Post-Pandemic

Post by Bagels »

I stopped at the Fox Hills JCPenney yesterday. Wow, did this store have the merchandise! So much that it was tough to navigate around. Probably more people shoplifting than buying - I opened up four boxes of shoes in my size, and all four had somebody’s old pair of shoes. The dressing room had a couple old shirts and an old pair of underwear…

Gotta wonder how much longer they’ll be around.
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Re: Kohls and JCPenney Post-Pandemic

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: July 22nd, 2022, 10:57 pm I stopped at the Fox Hills JCPenney yesterday. Wow, did this store have the merchandise! So much that it was tough to navigate around. Probably more people shoplifting than buying - I opened up four boxes of shoes in my size, and all four had somebody’s old pair of shoes. The dressing room had a couple old shirts and an old pair of underwear…

Gotta wonder how much longer they’ll be around.
I guess they have so little staff and the store is so cluttered that effective loss prevention cannot take place.

Does the merchandise... appear to be... stuff that will actually sell?
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Re: Kohls and JCPenney Post-Pandemic

Post by Bagels »

storewanderer wrote: July 23rd, 2022, 12:25 am
Bagels wrote: July 22nd, 2022, 10:57 pm I stopped at the Fox Hills JCPenney yesterday. Wow, did this store have the merchandise! So much that it was tough to navigate around. Probably more people shoplifting than buying - I opened up four boxes of shoes in my size, and all four had somebody’s old pair of shoes. The dressing room had a couple old shirts and an old pair of underwear…

Gotta wonder how much longer they’ll be around.
I guess they have so little staff and the store is so cluttered that effective loss prevention cannot take place.

Does the merchandise... appear to be... stuff that will actually sell?
Their problem is a lack of consumers. The merchandise mix in the men’s and boy’s departments looked solid, and the styling looked great. I knocked Sports Illustrated earlier, but upon second glance it’s the MSX line rebranded (probably because Authentic Brands Group owns it and a piece of JCP… saves them some royalties) and is pretty solid.

What’s telling is that there’s a ton of apparel (like shirts, hoodies, etc.) for various local sports teams (Rams, Lakers, UCLA, USC) marked down to nothing.z… if people were aware of it, it’d be gone overnight.

And it’s not going to get easier. It looks like JCP joins the growing list of retailers Nike is no longer supplying… Nike is by far the most popular brand at the moment, and JCP said during its bankrupt they’d probably liquidate without it since it drives traffic to the stores.
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Re: Kohls and JCPenney Post-Pandemic

Post by Alpha8472 »

The Sephora store is bigger than the Ulta inside of Target, but Ulta seems to have a range of prices and many affordable items. Sephora is all high priced. Customers already go to Target for cosmetics, but people do not go out of their way to go to Kohl's for cosmetics.

The customer counts at Sephora inside of Kohl's are dismal.
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Re: Kohls and JCPenney Post-Pandemic

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: August 28th, 2022, 8:31 pm The Sephora store is bigger than the Ulta inside of Target, but Ulta seems to have a range of prices and many affordable items. Sephora is all high priced. Customers already go to Target for cosmetics, but people do not go out of their way to go to Kohl's for cosmetics.

The customer counts at Sephora inside of Kohl's are dismal.
Can Sephora inside Kohl's possibly have less traffic than Sephora inside JCP?

I think with how low traffic at Kohl's primarily freestanding stores currently is, it is possible.

In the case of JCP Sephora, they could pull traffic in from the mall.

I guess Sephora needed somewhere else to go after no longer having a tie up with JCP. They probably should have opened more mall based stores especially in malls where their JCP kiosks had high volume, and maybe they did do that. Ulta has a much better product variety than Sephora plus has various services in some stores like salons, etc. JCP has its own salon division but Kohls does not and that could have been a worthwhile addition (when you have as much dead space as Kohls, anything would be an improvement from their current efforts). Ulta would have actually probably been a better fit for Kohls but Ulta already has enough freestanding stores near where most Kohls are located so it would be redundant and not make sense for them.
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