Bankrupt JC Penney can't find a buyer.

[Ohiogal]

JCPenney has been around for 118 years!

One of our aunts, no longer with us, worked her entire career in the catalog department at Penney’s, starting right out of high school. She retired with a full pension!

My, how times have changed.

[at140]

1. JCP business model is horrible

They send me $10 coupon with no restrictions.
I buy a $11 item and walk out after paying $1 for the item.

[Agschmid]

16. They need to add some thresholds to those coupons!

[Blue_true]

22. Their situation is sad.

They used to have great merchandise when I was a kid. Then in the 90s they started loading up with cheap junk. But recently, they have been selling good quality merchandise, their formal wear is excellent and fairly priced.

It may be too late for them, this is like their second or third time in bankruptcy.

[at140]

30. and yet watch their CEO exiting with a golden parachute

just like K-Mart and other outfits which went bankrupt.

[cbdo2007]

2. Have they considered sending out scratch off 15%, 20% or 30% off cards to potential buyers?

[doc03]

5. Who would want to take on their debt? nt

[SharonClark]

3. I loved it when JCP was a full service department

store from the candy counter to the music shop to home furnishings with lots of selection. Now I buy nearly everything online because I can’t find what I want locally. So sad.

[frazzled]

4. All department stores are dead or dying

From Neiman Marcus to Penny’s. It’s been happening in slow motion for the past two decades. It’s in its death throes now.

A lot of it is due to the rise of Internet shopping. I’ve read a lot about the rise of the department store in the late 19th century. A hundred and 25 years later, it is being replaced by new models ... and (sadly to me), there’s little to be done about it. We live in times of great change.

[Volaris]

6. You're right, but Penny's and Sears should have been CREATING the Amazon model 15 years ago...

They had the foundation (huge catalogs), all they would have had to do was online them, and then offer to sell others stuff for a very small fee on their own platform.

[Maeve]

7. That would have required vision

Not something many businesses have shown

[Volaris]

8. That's also very true, sadly

[Wounded Bear]

17. Crazy considering they pioneered mail order back in the 1800's...

[hatrack]

21. Much more important to become "Survivor: Randroid Island" than run a business . . . .

At least that was the Sears story, along with chop-shopping the whole enterprise for the C-level vultures.

[Backseat Driver]

10. But not a fully functional internet equipped with secure (haha)

shopping carts. They never noticed the traffic "window shopping" the stores, then going home to their ever greater functional PCs.

[themaguffin]

13. Yep, they were the Amazon's of their time. They lacked the vision to adapt

[frazzled]

14. Even the dept. stores with sophisticated Internet sales and delivery

are struggling, e.g. Macy's and Nordstrom. You can order online and have it shipped within 2 days. If they just go full-on virtual, with no stores, there's really no point to them: they can't support having expensive leases and salespeople and insurance and janitorial staff, etc. and a bricks-and-mortar presence at the same time.

What will happen with all those old buildings? (Indeed, after COVID, what will happen to all the office buildings? They're empty right now, and people aren't renewing their leases). We're going to have ghost towns.

[at140]

18. the key to eBay's success was........

eBay does not sell anything themselves. They offer a place where shoppers can buy stuff from a million vendors
and eBay stands behind the buyer in case of fraud. I like eBay better than Amazon because much more stuff is free ship than
Amazon. To get free ship from Amazon you must buy $25+ or subscribe to Prime.

Penny and Sears did not want other vendors to use their catalogs/mail order. In hindsight a huge mistake.

[Codeine]

36. The shipping isn't free on eBay.

Canny sellers just bake it into the price to impress the buyer.

[at140]

39. I have bought 900 items on eBay and sold 250 used golf clubs

I find small items on eBay at lower prices than Amazon.

Just today, I was looking for a wall mounted bracket to hang a flower pot.
I searched Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot and eBay.
Found a nice one on eBay, cheaper than anything on Amazon, or Walmart and it was on $8 including free ship.
Amazon wanted $5.85 to ship similar items, ditto with Walmart.

Also many times I have won Auctions on eBay at really low prices.
My bid for a Dell Latitude laptop for $55.01 won me a nice laptop 3 years ago, still works great.
And it was free ship!

[ProfessorGAC]

20. And Remember...

...both had their loyal customers willing to buy without being able to touch or see the item.
Both had a very broad, direct to home distribution network.
And Sears was a digital pioneer with Compuserve being heavily financed by several bigshots at Sears.
Both of these companies could have Amazon's while Bezos was in grade school.
Everyone who ran either of these companies should be required to repay every penny they made when they reached a strategic position.
A truly epic failure.

[Klaralven]

29. Sears bought Land's End, a really good mail order clothing operation, and totally screwed it up

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. The malls that house the stores are dying very quickly

It's vicious circle. The stores in the mall are closing, to the point that malls can't meet THEIR mortgage payments, so malls just close down also.

[Volaris]

15. Then eminent domain them, and turn them into city/community centers.

Put govt offices in them, as well as community rec centers, farmers markets, greenhouses, voting centers and safety net offices, postal and community credit union centers, etc

No reason to let them just rot, none at all

[Klaralven]

27. The real estate companies are trying that strategy, but can't get plans past the local outcry, NIMBY

[Volaris]

37. Why wouldnt you want that in your backyard??

[at140]

19. Covid-19 was the straw which broke camel's back

Fear of covid-19 infection has drastically reduced already low traffic through malls.

[Blue_true]

24. I don't completely agree with you.

What JC Penny should do is slim down to it’s core competencies and then sell online, with a few “distribution” warehouses like Amazon does. A key part of that is setting up and maintaining a well thought out website that allows a customer to smoothly shop and checkout. Amazon is strong due to it’s easy to use website and checkout, IMO. Walmart Online isn’t as good as Amazon because Walmart has a somewhat clunky website that often freezes up.

Penny’s does casual and dress clothing, socks and shoes well and used to do kitchen items well. By getting back to those areas and executing well, it should be able to regain it’s footing and then start to expand by setting up a selling bizarre for product sellers the way that Amazon does. With the bizarre, it will simply run transactions and deliver stuff for a cut of the revenue, it takes no other risk.

[Backseat Driver]

9. I spent 6 years as a J.C.Penney employee

back in the good old 80s days when my girls were in elementary school. I was initially a Christmas seasonal employee in the catalog department during the evenings and weekends; miraculously, they kept me when the holidays were over, and I worked on the selling floor. HR didn't watch my hours carefully, and I became a FT "red badge" employee with benefits and even helped the Men's tailor and worked in the "cage." When the receptionist had surgery and a long recovery, I became the voice of the store and receptionist to the store managers, helping HR call in other employees to fill in for call-offs and sale event extras. Employees were an extended family group back then. Loved the 40% fashion discount for employees, and my days of service sure helped with DH's and kids' clothing needs as well. More good times than bad back then...yes, times certainly have changed.

"Attention, Penney's shoppers. It is now 8:55 pm and your Penney store will be closing (forever?) in 5 minutes"...soft lol.

[Maru Kitteh]

11. I remember the excitement of going with Mom to pick up our catalogue items when they arrived!

Waiting for those packages wrapped in plastic with the invoice on top to come from the back room of the store. The salesperson carefully recording each of our purchases as received.

My god I'm old.

[GoCubsGo]

23. Really sad.

Like Sears, they were done in by poor management. They were taken over by people who tried to turn them into something they were not. They started carrying crappy clothing that appealed to no one. The stores became, haphazard, cluttered messes. It's not surprising they are failing now.

JC Penney used to have great outlet stores. There was one nearby where my parents lived, and I always looked for forward to shopping there while I was on a visit. I always found great bargains. It's gone now.

[Blue_true]

25. I dressed myself at Penny's as a teen and young man.

You are right, it had great clothing, socks and shoes. Then it started selling crap that had the maker’s name plastered all over it and shrunk strangely on the first wash. Recently I purchased a dark suit and tie at a Penny’s, the quality was back, but as you pointed out, the place was a haphazardly crowded maze.

[lpbk2713]

26. I was sorry to see Montgomery Ward go years and years ago.

I used to shop there more than Sears or JCP. I think Wal*Mart and KMart is what killed them.

[demtenjeep]

28. This breaks my heart. Our original wedding rings were bought at Penneys. We didn't have $$$ 30 yea

later I lost the diamond in our original set (we paid less than 500 for all 3 in 89)

we upgraded last year and this time we spent the money


We love their jewelry.

[mcar]

31. I'm sorry about this

Always liked JCP, back when I used to shop in malls.

[Demovictory9]

32. Steinmart has been around 112 years... it's liquidating now

[tavernier]

33. My memory of JCP in the fifties

(I was a a pre-teen) was row upon row of petticoats made of yards and yards of stiff Nylon material. They were worn under a skirt, often two or three at a time until the skirt edges stood almost upright. They took up so much room that there were dozens of racks of them in the ladies department, all in many different colors. It looked like the carnival had come to town!

[Xolodno]

34. When Montgomery Wards went down...

That was the first sign...just no one knew it at the time. The're back of course as an online company. But back then, they catered to the lower middle class. The "mall" was built as a lucrative tax haven (as cities gave away the farm and did all infrastructure projects related to it). But now, that model is dead.

But remember, these big box retailers anchored in a mall, are what killed off main street shops. So, now, they are being killed off by online sales and years of bad mismanagement (Sears was in the perfect position to harness online sales due to their catalog...instead, they killed it). They never embraced technology enough to capitalize on it (and mind you, there were some good ideas out there, if they were willing to invest into it).

Sad to see them go. But they are going to become warehouses for Amazon and other online retailers.

[Raine]

35. This is so sad 😥

I loved the department stores Sears, Montgomery Wards, Penney's, Broadway all gone or going, we'll all be the poor for it.

[moondust]

38. Where's Eddie?

You know, Eddie Lampert, the hedge fund "financial manipulator" who killed Sears? He could probably scoop up JC Penney and make sure it's good and dead.



The Shameless Sears World Of Eddie Lampert Continues

[PTWB]

40. I'd rather shop online.

Even before Covid - shopping in a brick and mortar is so inconvenient.

With Amazon I can order a new pair of socks and a roll of high quality speaker wire while I’m sitting on the toilet and have them delivered the next morning.