Dappered

Affordable Men's Style

Offered Without Comment: JCP’s Goals this Holiday Season?

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Via NBC News: JC Penney fires shot in war for holiday shoppers with $1.97 pants
Many thanks to Ryan N. for sending in the style tip.

 

Maybe worth a revisit?

Comments

  3. Joe, you see something that sounds like an ultra sale….you tell us. You hear me? This may be the greatest shopping spree since the close of Marshall fields

  4. JC Penney has one goal this holiday season: “Beat the ever-living snot out of all of Ron Johnson’s friends and family…oh, and to make you wear bad-fitting things…well, I guess that’s two goals.”

  7. I may need to look at the lighter gray version of this. Sidenote: Is anyone else wandering through there, and realizing the clothes are set at a good price but know they will go on clearance in January? Pretty hard to buy a $8.99 t-shirt, or $24 chinos when I bought them earlier for 1/5 that.

  8. I know we all liked the Johnson/Wooster era and for good reason. They changed everything about JC Penny we hated and made it relevant again with reasonably priced merchandise that fit well and had style. But the stark fact is Dappered readership, however powerful, cannot sustain JC Penny. The stores are too big and they’ve been engaged in a race to the bottom for too long. They really needed to focus on “middle america” that doesn’t really care about what they wear as long as it’s a good deal. Even if that means the return of ridiculous retail prices with incredible markdowns!
    So as foolish as this seems, and in the long run I still think JC Penny is doomed, it makes sense.

  11. Totally hear you. Yet I think “Dappered readership” should really = like-minded guys (and gals, they did a lot to their women’s line) who read or don’t read this tiny corner of the internet.

    Yet.. they weren’t necessarily making a killing before Mr. Johnson. They brought him in for a reason, right? So I wonder what their next strategy for returning to relevance will be.

  13. “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long – and you have burned so very, very brightly, JCP.”

  14. Very true, it’s not just the people who read this blog, but all the people who SHOULD read this blog and like-minded women as well. But that’s still not enough to sustain the reinvention Ron Johnson was aiming for. I see all this as a way of saying “I’M SORRY!” to all the people who would go to JC Penny as a first source to buy all their clothes (and then appliances, kitchen utensils, etc) rather than someone like myself who would buy a handful of pieces a year.

  15. This.

    I can’t possibly believe they actually want to “return to relevance”, I mean I am sure they think that but I have no idea how one could make sense of their strategies as it relates to that idea.

  17. This comment makes no sense. As much as we loved the Wooster inspired clothing, JCP was losing customers and hemorrhaging cash flow.

  18. The real problem was that towards the end of Johnson’s tenure many of his ideas were starting to work. It’s that the board felt that recovery was not fast enough or significant enough, and JCPenney’s had been in the hole for too long. I think it was a bad decision. This holiday season may be JCPenney’s last.

  19. Well Kohls seems to be afraid of them taking market share. I think they hold on for a few more years, but ultimately I agree they are doomed. When you make clothing essentially a commodity rather than providing something of real value you can’t compete on the scale they are trying to operate on.

  21. I talked to a guy at the local JCP and from what he tells me, the super low prices are not something sent down by corporate, but rather, the prices the stores set once they take possession of goods that are going on clearance. Basically, corporate says that this is what everything costs, it goes through a few levels of price cuts now that sales are back, and then it’s up to the stores to do whatever they want to get rid of stuff. So you won’t find it at all the stores, or the same prices.

  22. I’m 33, and had not been inside a JC Penney in well over a decade, until last week when I was looking for the Claiborne charcoal suit mentioned on here. I didn’t find the suit, but I did find a ton of Stafford suiting that was extremely crappy quality. I also saw a junky store, with poor organization, no salespeople to be found, and with clientele I don’t imagine shopping at nicer department stores.

    I’m not saying these things to sound snotty or overly critical, but to illustrate the point that JC Penney is not moving in the right direction based on my experience. Although a “department store,” it felt like a poor man’s Kohl’s more than it did a low-mid tier department store. I’ve seen Target clothing departments more organized and well-maintained.

    Because I didn’t find the Claiborne suit there, I went to another JC Penney in my area and they didn’t have the suit either. This JCP was at least slightly better organized than the first one, but still without any semblance of a quality, forward-thinking store. I always thought that Sears was the lowest rung on the department store ladder, but after this, I’m thinking JCP belongs there.

  24. You’re also catching it after the chaos of the new regime, the lack of execution while the new regime was there, and now the chaos after the regime has completely left and they’ve gone back to the old ways. The stores started to look better during Ron Johnson’s time, but the numbers while he was there were dreadful.

    As far as the suits go, agreed. Most of the stafford main line hasn’t changed. There was one (a lighter slim fit glen plaid) that was terrific for the price, then the Claiborne options, and there were more. I check in on Kohl’s once every couple months, and while I’ve picked up numerous pieces from JC Penney in the last year or two, I’m still without much if anything from Kohl’s.

    So, yes, it wasn’t a home run by any stretch, but you’re also seeing it now at the absolute worst time.

  25. Well hang on. Skeet’s comment should have been “they hate OUR money”. Yet the pre Ron Johnson revenue streams weren’t exactly gushing either. They were there, but just a trickle. They were at a fork in the road. They took the wrong path. But is there really a right path? They sure as heck aren’t out of the woods (where the road forked of course) yet, and could be completely done in a few years whether they hired Ron Johnson or not. Also, let’s not be so dismissive. C’mon now.

  26. Do you like it? On a recent article here I decided the price was so ridiculous I thought I would give it a shot. I ordered a tan colored Clairborne jacket and a Strafford? camel hair jacket. I like the Clairborne a lot and fits great and the Strafford camel hair jacket is awesome too, but the fit is off. I wear size 42 and everything fits right except for the stomach area. Hey, I got a slight beer gut going (not that bad) but this jacket was made for a sideline quarterback. The waist/stomach area is HUGE. I could put a couple pillows in there. I just dont have the time right now to bring it back to JCP to see if they even have the same jacket in stock or something very similar so I can try a smaller size.

  27. Some folks seem to have taken the position that JCP’s return to the pre-Ron Johnson business model, while unfortunate from a style perspective, is a necessary and savvy business decision. These folks seem to be forgetting why JCP brought on Johnson in the first place: The pre-Johnson business model failed. JCP has been courting annihilation for years without any help at all from Ron Johnson or Nick Wooster.

    JCP’s purge of Johnson/Wooster and return to its old business model is no more savvy a decision than crawling back onto the sinking Titanic because the lifeboat’s got a leak.

    From what I understand, the Johnson business model’s failure had almost nothing to do with the modernization of JCP’s style offerings. Instead it resulted from the unpopularity of the new pricing scheme, the huge costs incurred by individual stores renovating and remodeling to implement the new branding, and the alienation of long-time JCP customers by the speed of the rebranding. The new business model may have had a chance of success if it had not been so poorly and frantically implemented.

  28. I can only respond to what was posted, not what should have been posted.

    I thought the re-branding of JCP was a great idea and I was briefly bullish on the stock. It just turned out to not work out fast enough on a wide scale. I don’t think what they’re doing now is great either and I am convinced they will be bankrupt sooner rather than later.

  30. Am I the only one who sensed that just beneath the surface there was also a red vs blue political vibe? Not that the issue of clothing style itself is political. Something about the us vs them mentality in various comments on other forums from the old coupon craving JC Penney customers often gave me that feeling.