For most retailers, the upcoming Black Friday will be bigger (more deals, longer hours) than ever before. But what does a store do on Black Friday if it’s promised to stop using the discounts and marketing and sales gimmicks that …
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JCPenney: Forget Coupons and Black Friday Sales. How About a Free Photo Instead?
The reason why door buster deals, coupons, dramatic markdowns, and a short-lived sales are staples of the retail holiday scene is simple: They drive traffic into the stores. So how does a store attract customers when it’s sworn …
JCPenney Would Be Doing Great If the Stores Were Less Like JCPenney
In a meeting with analysts this week, JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson—the retail superstar famous for making the Apple Store a monster success—proudly showed off a model of the JCPenney store of the future, featuring an assortment …
No Sale? Retailers Try to Avoid Deep Discounting Without Losing Shoppers
At some point in recent years, 50% off became the new normal, with shoppers growing increasingly accustomed to dramatic markdowns—and correspondingly unimpressed with a measly 10% off. Stores jacked up list prices so that the …
JCPenney: Simple Pricing Sure Can Be Complicated
When trying to simplify something, the first rule is: Don’t make it more confusing. And yet, while one of the main focuses of JCPenney’s radical retail overhaul is a simplification of pricing, shoppers seem more confused than …
Big-Box Shrinkage: Retailers Embrace Sales on a Smaller Scale
While the big-box retail model is far from dead, stores such as Walmart, Best Buy, and Cabela’s are realizing that the enormous, one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for all shoppers—nor all locations. To grow, many …
Free Haircuts, Gas and Bowling: A Roundup of Midsummer Freebies
To drum up business in the lazy dog days of summer, retailers are offering deals such as free haircuts for kids, free gas, free bowling, and free ice-cold refreshments. Here’s a hot list of current freebies.
A Store Without a Checkout Counter? JCPenney Presses on with Retail Revolution
JCPenney’s dramatic makeover has led to customer confusion and subpar sales, but the company is sticking with its plan to revolutionize its brand.
More Troubles for JCPenney: Top Executive Departs Amid Sales Slump
Ron Johnson was brought in as JCPenney’s new CEO last year largely due to his experiences with two of the most phenomenal success stories in retail in recent history: Target and Apple Store. What does it mean that Johnson’s …
Can You Sue a Store for Having Too Many Sales?
There’s a good argument to be made that when a store’s merchandise is always on sale, it’s never really on sale. The retailer is just employing fake prices that no one ever pays. The prices exist only to make discounts seem …
Why JCPenney’s ‘No More Coupons’ Experiment Is Failing
The new JCPenney sounds so appealing on paper. Earlier this year, the retailer announced that “fake prices”—inflated big time to make markdowns seem more tempting—would disappear, to be replaced with a “fair and square” …