JCPenney Closing Stores, Slashing Jobs and Getting Old
In case you didn’t hear, JCPenney is closing stores, 33 of them and slashing 2,000 jobs. They recently made the announcement explaining this is part of their plans to become more profitable. The company has seen some decent blows to their bottom line with customers abandoning them in droves due lack of customer interaction, bad management decisions (ending coupons remember that?) and a web presence that is less than stellar.
LIST OF THE 33 STORES THEY’RE CLOSING
The one thing you don’t hear in the midst of all this is truly realistic explanation in terms of why their company continues to follow right along side Sears down the path of destruction. Why is it huge trusted companies like Sears and Penney’s are running into such problems? Has anyone thought that maybe it’s because they are old? That’s right JCPenney is closi
JCPenney: Old Dog That Never Learned New Tricks
As their customer base grew older JCPenney failed to think about the fact that the views and interests of the younger generations coming up would be different than the 60 plus crowd. For the old timers JCPenney’s was that store where you bought fairly decent professional clothes and some housewares. Which is great and all but the new generation of customers aren’t the grab a nice pair of dress slacks, some khakis and a duvet cover type. It’s the same thing with their twin sister Sears.
How do I know this?
Let me explain my reasoning behind this based on a little survey I did. I called 25 people in the past two days, all of which are friends, family and associates of mine and asked them a couple questions. I asked them when the last time they had been to JCPenney’s was and if they hadn’t been there in years I asked them if they knew anyone who did.
Out of the 25 people I spoke with only 2 of them answered that they had been there or knew someone who had. Now get this, one person actually went there for a food processor and the other one said his grandmother went shopping their during the holidays. WTF?
You see what I am saying? The company doesn’t even realize they have no appeal right now to anyone who isn’t clearly sporting gray hair growth. It’s crazy!
On a final note, JCPenney executives if you want my advice or would like to chat more about fixing your company I’d be happy to share my thoughts on it with you.
What’s your opinion on JCPenney? When was the last time you shopped there?
