Posted on 03/02/2013 7:34:55 AM PST by Sir Napsalot
.... Fourth-quarter earnings results came out on Wednesday and they were terrible. The bad news starts with a quarterly loss of $427 million, but it doesn’t end there. Comparable store sales—meaning stores that were open this past quarter and also open in the same quarter of the previous year—fell by a mind-boggling 32 percent. Henry Blodget says it may have been the worst quarter posted by any retailer ever.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. JCPenney made a big splash in the retail world by hiring Ron Johnson, mastermind of Apple’s retail operations, as CEO. He immediately set about to reorganize the stores, and imported Apple concepts, most notably a “no discounting” policy geared around convincing customers that the everyday price is a great price. The results seemed to speak for themselves, but I was curious. After all, I’ve never given the “new” JCPenney a try. Perhaps Johnson is a visionary genius who’s reinvented the department store, and the world just isn’t ready for him. Perhaps he’s the victim of bad luck. Perhaps shareholders just need to hold on and have faith.
So I took the Metro to the Maryland suburbs for a visit to the JCPenney in the Wheaton Plaza Mall to see if Johnson really is reviving the legendary chain. .... Nobody was ever driven into bankruptcy by unreliable Wi-Fi, but that’s the Ron Johnson Era in a nutshell. Instead of building on what the people who like JCPenney liked about JCPenney, he undertook a series of essentially arbitrary changes that alienated some without drawing anyone new in.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
But to what end? There’s already a Target and an H&M in the same mall for those seeking a slightly hipper experience. ...."
This is not to BASH JCPenny, maybe it is the norm nowadays for retail in general. Even Barnes and Noble is in trouble, they can't compete with Amazon. But I think there should be a lesson somewhere in there, regarding JC Penny.
I can count the number of things I have ever bought at JCP on both hands and have some fingers left over.
Retailers I feel that are trouble:
1. Best Buy
2. JC Penny
3. Lord and Taylor
4. Sears
5. B&N
The best way to sell clothing is the Kohls model. Those sales and perks draw the customers in.
JC Penny used to be a family oriented store. Parents would go there to buy their children school clothes, and the home department was great. But JC Penny decided to join the homosexual activists and started a pro-homosexual ad campaign. Parents were disgusted, and stopped doing business with the chain.
Since then, JC Penny hasn't been able to repair the damage. They've become, if you will, an abomination in the eyes of American families.
No one shops at Pennys anymore. I wouldn't shop there.
The autobiography was that of Sam Walton.
When it comes to B&N, they do so much on line business, people aren't showing up in the stores as much, so they're cutting back on the stores. On line business is doing well as far as I've heard.
We have a B&N around here. My kids and I go there all the time. To them, it's more like a toy store (they like to collect the series books). To me, it's a source for useful, permanent information (I keep a lot of reference books. If the electric were to ever go out, I'd have all my information on paper).
Penny’s violated the first principle in business:
KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS
I quit shopping anywhere when I ran out of money
I love going to B&N. Love bookstores. My kids do, too. My problem is their prices are significantly higher than Amazon and their own on-line store. I understand they have costs the others do not, but they could try staying in the same ballpark.
Exactally, they forgot who their target market was. Homosexuals can’t have kids and they have very unstable domestic relationships. Because of this they’re not going to be shopping at a store like JCP which is geared more towards families. As for clothes I highly doubt gays are shopping at Penny’s, with more disposable income they’re probably going to the newer and hipper clothing stores. I purposelessly avoid Penny’s because of their pro-gay stancenot a penny from me.
“JCPenney made a big splash in the retail world by hiring Ron Johnson, mastermind of Apple’s retail operations, as CEO.”
He was pushed out of Apple for a reason.
Yes, pushed. Hard & abrupt.
That model may work well for Apple who has a cult following, and whose devotees are willing to stand in line for days before a new product release, and would happily pay well in excess of the "everyday price," to have the latest.
For a clothing retailer, not so much.
That model may work well for Apple who has a cult following, and whose devotees are willing to stand in line for days before a new product release, and would happily pay well in excess of the "everyday price," to have the latest.
For a clothing retailer, not so much.
Really?
The problem I have with B&N is the same had with Borders. I love books and going in bookstores but their selection is geared toward women and more popular releases. I go in sometime just to “people watch”. Their vintage collection is almost non-existence.
yep- maybe the gays should go support JCPenny’s......
Absolutely, I was going to say this but was too lazy to type it all.
Kohl's utilizes newer technologies (and older) very well. Every week, I get one or two texts (Kohl's alerts) and they are typically 15-20% off any purchase.
Now when one of my kids needs sneakers or I need new dishcloths--instantly I think to check Kohl's and use my text.
Then more often than not, I get "Kohls cash" back. Sometimes as much as $20 for $50 spent.
So, the next week when we need something, where am I going? Kohl's to use the $20 in Kohl's cash I have with the text percentage off.
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