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We often receive complaints from readers who have totally legitimate gripes about shipping or customer service issues at retailers, both online and in real life. Unfortunately, they chose to share these complaints with the world by writing about them in the retailer’s product reviews. The problem with this plan is that companies control which reviews are and aren’t posted. If they don’t post yours, it’s not because they hate free speech: it’s because you didn’t follow the directions. [More]
JCPenney
JCPenney Continues To Modernize Stores, Gradually And Cheaply
By 6.4.13
JCPenney’s new housewares department is like a colorful oasis of hipness and color plopped in the middle of, well, a JCPenney store. Can it draw the younger and more affluent shoppers that JCPenney needs to survive, now that all of the Hitler teakettles have sold out? [More]
Of Course Someone Has Already Sold A JCPenney “Hitler” Tea Kettle On eBay For $199
By 5.30.13
All it takes for an item to sell out online is one tiny comparison to Hitler to go viral and boom — JCPenney’s now infamous tea kettle is selling for big bucks on eBay. At least one of the $40 kettles has already sold for $199, but rest assured, tea fans, there are plenty more out there. [More]
Whether This JCPenney Tea Kettle Looks Like Hitler Or Not, It’s Now Sold Out Online
By 5.29.13
The Internet has been hopping, buzzing and otherwise jibber-jabbering in the last few days over a tea kettle that showed up on a JCPenney billboard in Culver City, Calif. But whether or not the thing actually looks like Adolf Hitler (see the wave of hair in the handle, the moustache — there you go) it’s already sold out online. Which means if you want it, you’ll have to go into a JCPenney in person to get it. [More]
JCPenney To Require Structural Inspections Of Factories In Bangladesh
By 5.17.13
Retailers and manufacturers continue to react to last month’s tragedy at the Rana Plaza factory outside of Dhaka, Bangladesh, that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,100 people. Days after Walmart announced its own program to review and inspect manufacturing facilities in the region, JCPenney has outlined its plans to audit factories. [More]
JCPenney Already Done Apologizing, Moves On To Celebrating Customers’ Return
By 5.14.13
It feels like fewer than two weeks ago that JCPenney was coming to us, hat in heads, begging our forgiveness for the 18-month mistake that was the Ron Johnson era. Humbled, demure, wary of rejection after so much time in the dog house, JCPenney’s ad asked shoppers to please, please come back. [More]
JCPenney Says Coupon Code Users Can Only Get One Of Those “Free” Towels They Ordered Online
By 5.14.13
We told you last week about savvy online shoppers who realized that a JCPenney coupon code for $10 off purchases of $10 or more could be used to snap up a washcloth/towel combination that cost exactly $10. It also looked like the code could be used repeatedly, so some folks just kept ordering these items until JCP ran out of every possible color. But now the retailer is saying “not so fast” to customers who placed multiple orders. [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 Engagement Ring Is Defective But Won’t Replace It (Until Local News Finds Out)
By 5.8.13
A California couple got engaged six months ago, but in that entire time the bride-to-be has only had a few weeks with her engagement ring on her hand, as JCPenney admits the sparkler is defective, but didn’t want to replace it, or refund the cost. [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]
Macy’s Fails At Another Attempt To Block JCPenney From Selling Martha Stewart Wares
By 4.19.13
Just last week JCPenney scored a big hit against its rival Macy’s, when a judge said it could sell Martha Stewart products as long as her name was kept out of it. But then Macy’s was like, “Nope, don’t want that to happen,” and filed a temporary restraining order against JCPenney. An appeals court judge rejected that restraining order request, however, leaving Macy’s fuming again. [More]
JCPenney Knocks Out Macy’s In Court Ruling: JCP Can Sell Martha Stewart Products
By 4.12.13
Well lookee here — there’s news about JCPenney and for once, the company isn’t on the losing end of the stick. A judge ruled today against Macy’s request to extend an injunction that barred JCPenney from selling Martha Stewart designs in its stores. The ruling means JCPenney can peddle Martha’s wares (temporarily), as long as the products don’t have her name on them. [More]
‘Today’ Show Aptly Notes That Wisconsin Senator Will No Longer Be Running JCPenney
By 4.9.13
No wonder JCPenney axed former CEO Ron Johnson this week — it seems he’s been busy leading a double life as a Wisconsin senator. Or at least, that’s what the Today show seemed to think during its reporting of Johnson’s exit. [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]
JCPenney Fires A Warning Shot At CEO Ron Johnson By Way Of A 96% Pay Cut
By 4.3.13
JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson is basically drowning in a sea of sliding sales numbers and sinking stock prices, but instead of tossing out a life preserver, the company has instead fired off a warning shot by way of a 96% pay cut in 2012. The clear message? Either sink yourself, or prove you can, in fact, turn the company around. [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 Admits “There’s No Assurance” It’ll Be Able To Turn Things Around
By 3.21.13
Things have been rough for JCPenney, there’s no doubt about it. Just recently it got ditched by Caribou Coffee and had to promise not to sell Martha Stewart designs it’d already ordered because of a fight with Macy’s. It seems the retailer knows it, as the company admitted in its annual report that its resurgence “may take longer than expected,” and also that its efforts to remake itself might not even work. [More]
