J.C. Penney

Macy's took its legal battle over its agreement to exclusively sell certain Martha Stewart items directly to J.C. Penney on Thursday, accusing the rival department store chain of interfering with its contract with the home goods designer. Macy's already successfully persuaded a New York state judge to temporarily block plans for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to sell its products at J.C. Penney stores in a lawsuit against Martha Stewart. 

J.C. Penney just had one of its worst quarters ever — sales declined 23 percent to $3 billion, same-store sales fell 22 percent and internet sales sank 33 percent to $220 million. It's all the fault of CEO Ron Johnson, who embarked on a disastrous relaunch of the company in January which confused consumers and drove them away from its stores. On his conference call with Wall Street analysts, Johnson described his vision for getting the chain back on track in the remaining months of the year.

The New York Times recently ran an article detailing how F-commerce is doing. For anyone in need of a refresher, F-commerce was one of those ideas everyone was really excited about when it first popped up back in 2009, but it never really took off. Gap, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom and ASOS all shuttered their Facebook boutiques shortly after launching them. (We did an informal reader survey on the topic back in February: the majority of the 100-plus responders had never heard of F-commerce.) The Times is now reporting that although larger brands have bombed, small businesses are benefitting.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia filed a notice of appeal in a lawsuit by Macy's in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Bloomberg reported. Macy’s sued Martha Stewart Living in January to stop the company from executing a sales agreement that it announced in December with J.C. Penney. Macy’s said it had the exclusive right to sell Martha Stewart-branded products in certain categories. Last month, a judge in Manhattan granted Macy’s a preliminary injunction blocking Martha Stewart Living from taking any further steps under its deal with J.C. Penney. 

J.C. Penney rose the most in more than six months after Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson said his overhaul of the department-store chain is "on track" amid quarterly losses and plunging sales. J.C. Penney climbed 6.7 percent to $23.58 at 9:55 a.m. in New York and earlier added as much as 11 percent for the biggest intraday gain since Jan. 26. The shares dropped as much as 12 percent in pre-market trading after the company reported a $147 million second-quarter loss and said it wouldn't meet its profit forecast for the year.

What do you think about J.C. Penney's decision to move away from its six-month-old everyday low pricing model? And how do you handle pricing? Do you think sales are the way to go or are you a fan of the everyday low pricing model? We're trying to get to the bottom of this issue via our new "Question of the Week" discussion over on on Retail Online Integration's Facebook page. We would love to hear from you and get a dialog going on this important retail subject.

Thus far, the dramatic makeover of J.C. Penney has hardly been smooth sailing. The overhaul, in which coupons and nonstop sales have been replaced with lower everyday prices, has resulted in confusion among consumers and months of subpar sales, as well as the recent ouster of a top executive. Nonetheless, J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson is sticking with the plan to revolutionize a tired old brand — and perhaps retail as a whole. Speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, Johnson, a retail superstar who spent years building up Target and the Apple Store, made one eye-opening comment after another.

With the back-to-school shopping season right around the corner, we put J.C. Penney against its competitor Kohl's to see which brand is doing a better job of connecting with consumers via digital platforms. 

A state judge on Friday temporarily blocked plans by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to sell certain branded products at J.C. Penney stores. The preliminary injunction was a win for Macy's, which has sued Martha Stewart Living claiming it has exclusive rights to sell certain Martha Stewart products including soft furnishings, dinnerware and cookware.

J.C. Penney says it's laying off 350 more workers at its headquarters in Plano, Tex., as the department store struggles to transform its business under Ron Johnson, a new CEO and former Apple executive. Penney shares soared last winter after Johnson laid out a new pricing strategy; they hit a peak of $43.13 on Feb. 9, but have since lost half their value.