As an “expert” formerly known as a sales associate at Penneys, I know that most of my colleagues are concerned about the direction the company is going.
What I don’t think a lot of people understand is that this “destruction” of Penneys is totally by design. Ron Johnson has said as much. It is his vision that when everything he wants done is done, the Penneys we have all known will no longer exist.
The intent is to streamline brands and the amount of merchandise and to have within the store a so called “town square” atmosphere.
Rather than one large department store. There will be small “shops” that feature certain labels. They also plan to have “social” areas where one can have a coffee, surf the net on free wi-fi and participate in cooking demos with their new Martha Stewart line.
We are all asked to bear with the changes, be patient and confidently explain to customers that the changes will be great and make “JCP” a shopping experience unlike any other.
It’s all about Ron Johnson.
I have been a loyal Penneys customer for all of my life and was happy when I was hired there after being out of the workforce for over 20 years, but that has all changed. Now, I am just biding my time and don’t know if I will be around to see the changes come to fruition.
It’s hard to see such an integral part of Americana go by the way side.
That's the way Saks and Neiman Marcus are set up now - problem is, nobody has demonstrated that setting up a "mall-within-a-mall" will be an effective way to market to JC Penney customers, most of whom are conditioned not to spend unless they see "70% OFF!" signs in big red letters.
I expect Ron Johnson recognizes the American lower middle class is effectively dead, killed off by Obamanomics, and he knows JCP's days of being an effective competitor based on that demographic are over. Most people are moving down to Wal-Mart - and a few up to Nordstrom - leaving few consumers in JC Penney's traditional target market. To address this demographic shift, he wants to turn as much inventory management/warehousing/operations responsibility over to the "stores within a store" as he can, while making the new JCP brand attractive to Macy's level shoppers with more disposable income.
But I don't think he can complete such a huge transformation quickly enough. There is a "stigma" to shopping at JC Penney, and people who think of themselves as high-end consumers just aren't likely to ever go there. People who can no longer afford Macy's are likely to go to Kohl's, Wal-Mart, or Goodwill instead, depending on how far their fortunes have fallen.