Personally, I think Penny & Sears both need to get out of malls and go Wal-Mart. The roots of both companies are discount retail, both known in time past as blue-collar stores. Sears is positioned for that if they'd simply reflag their K-Marts as Sears stores. Sears has always been known as better quality than K-Mart.
“Personally, I think Penny & Sears both need to get out of malls and go Wal-Mart. The roots of both companies are discount retail, both known in time past as blue-collar stores. Sears is positioned for that if they’d simply reflag their K-Marts as Sears stores. Sears has always been known as better quality than K-Mart.”
That’s some of the best business advice I could imagine given the situation. Too bad you’re not on the board. Attempting to go Starbucks to attract the young an hip was beyond stupid. I’ve heard of rebranding, but you can’t rebrand a pig as a cow. You need to find better markets for the pig, not lust after steak you can’t produce.
I’ve dug things out of dumpsters that were better quality than K-Mart.
J.C. Penney? I’ve erased that name from my consumer index.
K-Mart is the pits. It is easily the dirtiest store in our town and the employees look like they are short a few brain cells.
These blood-sucking activists should be shown the door. In fact, they shouldn’t be allowed in the door. The founders of U.S. companies should never take their businesses public. It often leads to misery by the parasites that feed off the ideas and effort of others.
I’ve noticed a considerable improvement at JCP in the last few months. Salespeople seem happier, too.
That is good advice. I agree that Sears has a much better brand name than K Mart.
I cringe at even going to K-Mart. I do not even look at their ads anymore.
Target, Walmart, and Kohls are the stores I frequent now.
The right idea, but probably too late.
Walmart has spent billions on automation and strategic planning to shave every last penny off their cost of goods - there is no real way for any competitor to match them strictly on price. Competitors have to bring the same approach by putting smaller stores in "underserved" markets where people might not notice that the prices are a dollar or two higher than Walmart. Sears and JCP are big box stores that tend to be located in Walmart neighborhoods, already - places where they also have Kohl's and Target to deal with.
It's understandable that JCP tried to go up instead of down, but the middle class is shrinking so fast there isn't much "up" left to chase. Ron Johnson's plan might have worked in 2004 - but he failed to understand that the actions and attitudes of Obama and his 60's radical cohorts have slammed the door on upwardly mobile people.