J.C. Penney

J.C. Penney, the storied if unglamorous retailer, is in trouble. Big trouble. Fourth-quarter earnings came out last Wednesday and they were terrible. The bad news starts with a quarterly loss of $427 million, but it doesn't end there. Comparable store sales — i.e., stores that were open this past quarter and also open in the same quarter of the previous year — fell by a mind-boggling 32 percent. Henry Blodget says it may have been the worst quarter posted by any retailer ever.

J.C. Penney experienced a seismic shift on corporate culture when CEO Ron Johnson took the helm of the company more than a year ago. The new guard didn't like J.C. Penney's old way of doing things at headquarters. Not one bit. Dana Mattioli at The Wall Street Journal spoke with J.C. Penney Chief Operating Officer Michael Kramer about the company's culture and the mass layoffs at the company's headquarters. He's one of the execs brought in by Johnson, who he'd previously worked with at Apple.

J.C. Penney and Macy's are going head-to-head at the New York Supreme Court over whether Martha Stewart's contract with Macy's prevents J.C. Penney from selling Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia products in certain categories. Opening arguments in the case began yesterday.

Fake prices are coming back at J.C. Penney, and this time they'll be more fake than ever. In a fresh bid to highlight Penney's prices as low, CEO Ron Johnson is pushing some manufacturers to concoct phony suggested retail markups for their clothing, sources told The Post. The plan, insiders say, includes erecting signs and fixtures that will display the sometimes made-up retail prices, while tagging the clothes and accessories themselves with Penney's own lower prices.

Retail marketers have something new to keep them awake at night: the changing face of the American shopper that's well underway. Those changes are fraught with challenges we couldn't have imagined 25 years ago, largely due to the entry of mobile connectivity as a shopping tool.

Macy's bid to prevent Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. from executing a sales agreement with J.C. Penney is set to go to trial Feb. 19. The case won't be tried before a jury and there will be no need to decide damages, Judge Jeffrey K. Oing said yesterday in New York state court in Manhattan. Any potential damages in the dispute "are going to pale in comparison to the injunction," Oing said during a hearing. "That's the real big bucks there — if I stop this deal." Macy's, the second-biggest U.S. department-store chain, claims it has an exclusive right to sell Martha Stewart Living products in certain categories. 

Customers want more merchandise appeal and variety from most retailers, according to the annual Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index released today by customer experience analytics firm ForeSee. Internet-retail giant Amazon remains at the head of the class, according to the 8th annual report, which is based on more than 24,000 customer surveys collected during the prime holiday shopping season between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

More and more retailers are using food and drink to lure customers into stores as sales increasingly migrate online. Urban Outfitters, known for selling hipster threads in college towns, has served lamb merquez and striped bass at its Terrain home-and-garden store in Westport, Conn. J.C. Penney plans to add juice bars and coffee shops. Banana Republic has served cocktails to debut new clothing collections, while ANN Inc.'s Loft brand held Friday happy hours.

We're nearly a year into Ron Johnson's tenure as CEO of J.C. Penney, and the results aren't encouraging. The retailer's share price has fallen more than 10 percent under the former Apple and Target executive, and now, a new report from BIGinsight suggests that female shoppers are fleeing the retailer in droves.

This particular subject line really stuck out in my inbox: "Letter and Gift From Our CEO." It grabbed my attention for a few reasons. First, a letter and a gift sound intriguing. I was curious as to what the letter would contain, and what this gift really was. In addition, having the email from the CEO was also intriguing. The "From:" line on this email said, "J.C. Penney." The subject line said it was from the CEO.