A new direction of JCPenney
JCPenney is shaking things up! A couple of decades ago, you could only get old-fashioned clothes that even employees might not have bought. Walk into a store now, and you will be able to pick up the latest of styles for teenagers, along with stylish clothes for working women, lip gloss by Dior and Sephora cosmetics. Quite a change for a stogy old company!
While the company might still not be at the cutting edge of fashion, it has found its target market with great accuracy. For the average middle class women, between the ages of 35-54 having an annual income ranging between $35,000 and $100,000, this is ‘the’ store to shop at. For younger customers as well, there is lots in store at JCPenney, who will be introducing new labels for dorm room furnishings and a back-to-school wear line called Fabulosity designed by Kimora Lee Simmons.
The company has seen a setback with consumers cutting back on spending, but that has occurred across the board with all retailers. According to Steven Hoch, marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, says that JCPenney’s current turnaround is a great success story of recent times. Adding that, “J.C. Penney had to retrench and reposition. It was long and painful. The stores are significantly smaller than they used to be. But it has succeeded in becoming a moderately priced department store that offers good value.”
J.C. Penney had planned to open 50 new stores nationally this year but has scaled back to 36. The company’s 2007 annual profit was $1.11 billion, down 3.5 percent from the $1.15 billion the stores earned in 2006. Yearly same-store sales were flat when compared with those of 2006. And company officials say they do not expect sales to pick up during the rest of this year.
“I don’t think I’ve seen an environment as unpredictable as the current environment,” said company Chief Executive Officer Myron “Mike” Ullman III at a meeting with investment analysts last month.Two things J.C. Penney won’t cut back on, officials said, are the development of new labels and customer service.
By year’s end, the stores are expected to roll out several new brands. J.C. Penney also has started a new “customer first” service program that, among other things, allows employees to drop whatever they are doing to assist customers who need help in finding what they came to buy.