I have an additional suggestion for JCP: make the antennas on the wifi checkout stations shaped like something your clientele might also enjoy sitting on.
Posted on 07/23/2012 12:17:42 PM PDT by kevcol
J.C. Penney (JCP) will say farewell to cash registers, checkout counters and cashiers by 2014, said Ron Johnson, the chain's CEO, during the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, reports Time.
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"Think of a physical store without a cash wrap," Johnson told the audience, according to Time. "About 10% of all the money we spend, half a billion dollars a year, goes to [checkout] transactions." The money saved by replacing checkout stations with new technology could be invested in improving customer service, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyfinance.com ...
How is customer service increased when I have to do the work?
eerily this is the future... cashless society is coming.
If you can’t move product with sales move it with theft! ;-)
>> How is customer service increased when I have to do the work?
Depends on the meaning of the word “service”.
Think bull furnishing “service” to heifer.
I pray Sears doesn't follow suit, esp. in their tool department.
From China direct to you, without any Americans in the way to dirty up the business...Well, maybe a few American queers...
The theory isn’t that you do all the work, it’s not like the self checkout line at the grocery store. The theory is that all the floor help has units that can run your transaction, so instead of you getting all your stuff then finding a register that same associate that helped you get your stuff can just run the purchase and your done. Sounds nice in theory and works well at Apple stores, but in a business that’s mostly garments and mostly self guided (really the register clerk is usually the only employee I interact with) I think it will fail.
New JC Penney messenger bikes...
“How is customer service increased when I have to do the work?”
Exactly.
And how does calling some out-sourced turd-world call-center in india supposed to help with customer service. “So, sorry, come again.”
Yeah. . helpful.
They were one third of the way there last time I went to Penney. They still had the registers and counters, but I had a hard time finding one that was staffed so I could check out. If that last one hadn't had a cashier, I would have just left my intended purchase on the counter and walked out there nearby door.
Frankly I don’t care whether JCP has cash registers or not. Unless and until JCP management admits that they made a gross error by embracing the homo lifestyle and back tracks, I will not be entering their store. But, doesn’t the man know that many times the cashiers are the only people on the sales floor to provide customers with answers to questions. Simple questions like where is the men’s shoe department, please?
I have a suggestion to JCP. CLOSE
“J.C. Penney (JCP) will say farewell to cash registers, checkout counters and cashiers by 2014”
Is that when they officially change the name and business model to The GayCee Dollar Store?
JCP’s downfall is not due to the marketing to the homo’s, it is due to their new EDLP (Every Day Low Price) pricing strategy was an EPIC FAIL. They got their customers hooked on getting coupons weekly in the mail. Their customers didn’t shop without coupons, then only to have them ripped away, cold turkey. I will have to admit that once you start actually looking at the prices, they are lower, but nothing feels better than saving 20 or 30% when you are shopping.
My grocery store has the self serve checkout and I would rather do it myself..better than the slow as mollasses check out women they had before.
Seems to me in a clothing story they need a counter to fold the clothes to put them into a bag. And that’s where they store the bags. Also the counter is where they store the device to remove those tags that make the sirens go off if you walk out of the store with them.
Seems you still need some kind of check out work space.
Might as well, they said goodbye to their customers already!
That’s kind of what I’m thinking, somebody for the dehangering and bagging and all that. Of course you could possibly move a lot of that to the fitting area if it’s actually manned which is should be. Don’t know, we’ll see in 2014 if they live that long.
Stop using logic and facts. Their collapse has to because because JCP likes gay people. No further discussion...
Yeah, but at least the bull leaves with a smile, even if the “heifer” was fake. Can’t say the same for most customer “service” encounters I’ve had...
Are you old enough to remember the paperless office?
It’s the products they sell at the prices they sell the. It has nothing to do with fags! (Their stores are non-smoking areas anyway.)
>> Yeah, but at least the bull leaves with a smile... can’t say the same for most customer “service” encounters I’ve had...
That’s because, as the customer, you’re usually the *heifer* in the transaction. :-)
I could see where you could click an icon on your smart phone, hold the garment’s RFI tag up to it and your account would automatically be billed.
Grab a bag on the way out of the store and stuff it in.
But do you just turn away all the customers that don’t have smart phones? Or they forgot their phones? Or whose phones just died?
I suppose tens of thousands of retail executives stay up at night thinking about this stuff.
Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to close the brick and mortar stores and just go online only like Amazon.com
Not having a checkout clerk won’t make me want to go there. I avoid the self check machines at Home Depot, I’ll avoid them at Penneys...assuming I ever set foot in a Pennys ever again.
This will fail - taking the “human” connection out of the shopping experience is not the way to go.
“Might as well, they said goodbye to their customers already!”
I don’t know if it was as much of a “good-bye” as it was a GTFO. The old customers aren’t stupid, they got the message.
“J.C. Penney (JCP) will say farewell to cash registers, checkout counters and cashiers by 2014”
That quote should read,“J.C. Penney (JCP) will say farewell to cash registers, checkout counters, cashiers and customers by 2014”
Believe it or not, many years ago that is the ONLY way it was done, many sales clerks made a good commission with this method. Which may be the reason they went to Register clerks, no one really did any salesmanship, no one reaps a benefit.
In the olden days, the salesperson was very helpful or a nuisance, depending if your were looking or shopping. lol
If the J C Penny board does not fire CEO Ron Johnson quick, the company may as well close and dissolve.
This idea, as with all prior ones over the past year has taken a major retailer known for fair prices on good, basic products and turned it into a wreck. It used to be nicer than Sears for casual clothes, underwear & socks, sheets, window coverings and kitchen ware. It was never a Target or a fancy department store, but worth a visit for the above items. Now it has lost its character. It wasn’t just the gay thing, it was a blast of bad ideas that made Jane and John Shopper confused and disappointed.
The last couple times I was in JCP, which has been many months now, I was exceptionally annoyed with the fact that the cashiers were obligated to go through some long drawn-out speech asking me to get their credit card and to go online and complete some survey form to tell how helpful they had been. I just wanted to pay for my stuff and leave, and it was holding up the line waiting for their orations to be done.
I’ve never gotten a Penny’s coupon in my whole life.
Walmart used to have self service check out for a very few years. Everyone hated them and I saw many people (including myself) try to use them, then angrily throw their products back in the cart, and go looking for a checkout with a human operating it, or they would just leave the stuff and walk out.
Walmart wised up and pulled the self service checkouts.
The last time I was in a jcp store, about two years ago, a shooter would have had a hard time finding a target. It was weird. That was before word got out that they were recruiting homosexual clientele.
“Walmart wised up and pulled the self service checkouts.”
If they did, they must have experienced a high number of thefts at your store. Every Super Walmart in Texas has one section of self-check registers. We prefer to use them because they are faster than waiting in regular check-out lines.
I shudder to think about what a gayified Sears tool department would look like! ;^)
I guess the idiot who thought this up hasn't visited a store and actually tried to find a sales associate lately...
Although I seldom shop at Sears, in some departments there is a person on the floor that carries all the way through with the transaction.
I bought a chainsaw last week and an associate made the sale and cashed it out.
The same is true for electronics. I don’t know about clothing
For many, many years, customers at Service Merchandise stores had the option to ring themselves out using a kiosk called Silent Sam.
Sam never accounted for more than about 2% of store transactions. Mall shoppers are not Early Adapters.
They’ll still take cash just fine. I shop at Fresh and Easy for Groceries and there are no cashiers. luv it and im fast.
I dont shop at JC Penney but if they want to turn the shopping expeeience onto a commodity it will be reflected in thier sales.
It will feel like shopping online and I’m comfortable buying from certain manufactueres of clothing.
Brooks Brothers, Burberry, Paul Stewart, Allen Edmonds, Ferragamo, Cole Haan all fit exactly as they should for my size and i rarely try them on in the store as such.
They won’t have to worry about cash registers, or doors. They will be closed.
They're pulling them from high theft stores, we still have them in my area.
We still have most gas stations where you can get your gas and then go in and pay for it. Traveling in Missouri recently all I could find was "pay first". Too many "drive offs", I suppose.
This sounds like a loser to me.. while younger folks may be fine with this, how do you think older shoppers will deal with it?
This guys trying something 20 years before he should IMHO, at least in a retail venue where you have a lot of elderly shoppers.
I liked them, but one of the things I bought regularly at Walmart was a two pack of lithium coin batteries ($3 for one battery, $3.50 for two?). Every time I tried to use the self serve the package was too light to be detected on the bagging scale and a supervisor had to come over and punch in an override code. Since then they've jacked up the two pack price so I don't go very often anymore.
I don’t shop Sears because of its made in China Craftsman tools and I don’t shop Penney’s because of its poor quality merchandize and its embrace of the homosexual agenda. Sears is projected by some analysis to be out of business by year’s end. Penny’s should follow.
I refuse to use them because I won’t help a company deduce its employe base. I’ll stand in long lines if it will help even a few people remain employed.
I’m with you. I like the personal touch when I shop.
My credit union has gone to computer monitor xactions only.
I never go in the bldg anymore. Apparently neither does anyone else as I never see any cars around the bldg.
OTOH it’s probably just what they want. Less staff.
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