Last year, JCPenney waited around until Thanksgiving Day to begin its Black Friday/Shopping Frenzy Week deals. This year, the department store chain has decided that’s way too late, and plans to start its deals even earlier: all of its advertised specials for Black Friday will be available on Wednesday. [More]
jcp
JCPenney Sales Increase Slightly, Still Losing Money
By 8.12.16
When higher-end department stores like Macy’s and even Nordstrom are struggling, it’s understandable that JCPenney might have another tough quarter trying to bring in new customers, get the ones it has to come in and spend more often, and find things to sell that customers can’t just go buy online instead. [More]
JCPenney Will Actually Be Selling Some Items For A Penny
By 2.24.16
Not so long ago, JCPenney was pushing the idea of “No More Sales,” hoping to attract shoppers with everyday low prices. That didn’t work, and now the retailer is going in the completely opposite direction with upcoming promotions where it intends to sell things for just a single penny. [More]
JCPenney Coupon Code Results In Rush On “Free” Towels And Washcloths
By 5.10.13
In what is either a mistake that will probably result in angry customers and canceled orders or a deliberate effort to rid its warehouses of towels and washcloths, JCPenney issued a coupon code earlier today for $10 off purchases of $10 or more. [More]
JCPenney Admits Last 18 Months Were A Huge Mistake, Begs You To Come Back
By 5.1.13
The last thirty years are filled with horrendous missteps that were ultimately dismissed as one-off errors in otherwise reliable track records — New Coke; the 11th season of Saturday Night Live; Neil Young’s Everybody’s Rockin’; Highlander 2: The Quickening — and now JCPenney is hoping that the Ron Johnson era will fade into memory with a new ad that basically admits the company made a mammoth oopsy. [More]
What In The World Is Going On With The Prices At JCPenney?
By 4.30.13
First JCPenney got rid of sales in favor of lower prices, then it fired its president, re-introduced some sales, then ditched the no-more-sales thing entirely, then started allegedly inflating retail prices to make sale prices look more attractive, then fired the CEO… Now some say that JCP is raising prices by upwards of 67% on some items, perhaps hoping that customers will use coupons to get deals (that aren’t really deals). [More]
JCPenney Ends Ron Johnson Experiment, Sends CEO Packing
By 4.8.13
When Ron Johnson took over as CEO of JCPenney a little more than a year ago, he promised sweeping changes. A new image, an end to sales, everyday low prices, iPad-toting staffers, Genius Bar-like customer service. He tried all that, but the retailer still couldn’t shake its reputation as the place your mom dragged you to buy clothes you hated in 1984, and now Ron Johnson, he’s gone. [More]
Worst Company In America Round 1: Sears Vs. JCPenney
March 22, 2013
To mark the halfway point in the first round of WCIA, we bring you this fight between two department stores that are wildly adored… in an alternate universe where it’s still 1985. [More]
JCPenney Laying Off Even More Employees
By 3.7.13
A year ago, JCPenney staffers were telling us they were afraid the retailer was “turning into Sears,” but at this point that might not be such a bad thing. [More]
JCPenney Loses My Mattress, Suggests I Rent A Truck To Go Pick It Up
By 1.21.13
Consumerist reader and former JCPenney employee Ron says he’d had some residual loyalty for the department store. That was before JCP not only lost his new mattress then suggested he rent a truck to pick it up. He might have even done it, if anyone could tell him where the mattress was. [More]
JCPenney Problems Highlight What Happens When A Brand Becomes Just Another Name
By 11.13.12
JCPenney has lost a ton of money since the beginning of the year, when it announced a drastic “no sales” policy and attempted to rebrand itself as “jcp.” But can you really “re-brand” a store that hasn’t had an identity since my mom dragged me there to buy back-to-school clothes in fifth grade? [More]
This E-Mail Basically Sums Up Why JCPenney May Be On Borrowed Time
By 8.7.12 — Updated: 3.22.13
Like the dorky kid in a high school sitcom who tries to change his image by showing up one day in leather pants and frosted hair, JCPenney has spent the last year desperately trying to make over its image as a place people used to get dragged to by their mom every August. But all the across-the-board price cuts, logo redesigns and iPad-toting cashiers in the world can’t cover up sheer incompetence. [More]
