J.C. Penney is changing in less than 48hrs the sales are ending. Will it work? The last couple of weeks there have been headlines, as reported by all major networks: J.C. Penney realized it was time to change. The countdown is on their website (jcpenney.com). Americas love story with Pennies as locals like to call it has gotten less steamy. Christmas sales were according to the company less than expected. The solution? Simple question many solutions, a Google search turned up 31,400,000 results on the topic.
The New York Times report that the new chief executive, Ron Johnson, formerly of Apple, and its new president, Michael Francis, formerly of Target are behind the latest approach to turn around things. Mr. Johnson said at a news conference, there were 590 promotions. The average customer visited Penney four times a year in 2011, he added, “so the customer ignored us 99 percent of the time.”
Miami features several Penny’s often flag stores at major malls. In light of the headlines a visit to store #1360 in Dadeland mall before the changes take place seemed appropriate. The employees interviewed asked to remain anonymous. The overall response was hope and excitement. The sales staff work on commission and were excited to talk about their new leadership. They also expressed their own confusion with the sales and found it hard to keep track. The found it hard to know what the price would be at final checkout. The overall feeling was hope for more and better exclusive brands and two staff members said they hope to compete with Macy’s and get a more higher end clientele, while still serving the lower end and middle class. They also said the stores except for the addition of Sephora brand hasn’t changed much and they were excited about new updates and changes. Walking around the store some of the original price tags had already been replaced with big differences in the price. The future is yet to see but Penny’s at Dadeland mall seems to have support from its sales force, the rest of the country is yet to see.
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