While other retailers including Macy's, Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buys moved their Black Friday openings up to or even right into Thanksgiving day, J.C. Penney stuck with its usual 4 a.m. opening.
The department store chain was counting on sales from its website and loyal crowds of shoppers to keep it in the game, as the competition scrambled to open their stores earlier to get the first shoppers. J.C. Penney resisted opening as early as its rivals, saying it wanted workers to have the whole Thanksgiving day with their families.
The verdict is in on what effect that had on J.C. Penney's sales, and it wasn't pretty. "The Company noted that its decision to respect Thanksgiving Day for families and open at 4:00 a.m. on Friday, as it had in prior years, adversely impacted Black Friday sales," said J.C. Penney in a press release. "Sales remained soft in-store throughout the holiday weekend."
For November, sales fell 5.9 percent at J.C. Penney stores, totaling $1.74 billion. Sales at stores open a year or more, considered a key indicator of a retailer's health, were down 2 percent.
That's especially bad for the chain in a year when holiday retail as a whole continues to rebound, driven by deep discounts, and Black Friday sales as a whole were up 6.6 percent. And last year, J.C. Penney saw a 7.2 percent increase in its November sales.
So it looks like consumers have voted with their feet and their wallets, turning out in droves for 9 p.m., 10 p.m. and midnight openings and shunning one of the few mass-market department stores that held out for a Friday opening.
Any retailers that consider trying to reverse the trend of Black Friday Creep will have to take note - and the earlier openings are probably here to stay.
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13 comments:
Serves JC Penney right. I placed an order online for a product that was "in stock", received the order confirmation, my credit card was charged, then I received an email several days later saying it could not fulfill the order. It refunded the charge but I lost time during the sales weekend when I could have bought the product somewhere else at a discount.
JC Penney has had a rough few months. Getting banned (well, temporarily) by Google and now this.
How are they proving that the time is what caused the dismal sales figures?
More than likely it was the dismal sales they offered. JCP did not have much to offer in the way of Black Friday deals.
I'm sorry that JC Penneys or ANY store is being penalized for allowing their employees to have a full holiday. I wish I had known, I would have done ALL of my shopping there!
Did not shop there on Black Friday, but had good luck Monday.
In fact, what I wanted was out of stock on line...checked my local store and they had it, so I ran over there to get it. Price was the same and no wait or shipping fees.
Two comments. First, I think JCP's low sales are due to oversaturation in their market for faux upscale crap. They are a dinosaur trying to compete in a modern world. Belk's will be next. Macy's is taking over that niche.
Secondly, as much as I don't care for the ever earlier Black Friday hype, I don't really understand the "poor employee" plight of them not having time to spend that particular day with their families. There are lots of industries that require folks to be on the job on Thanksgiving. It's not a surprise, you just re-arrange your schedule. For example, do you want the power company to shut down their plants on Thanksgiving so their employees can "be with their families?" It's called competition. I thought we were all supposed to be glad to let market forces work these things out. Guess what? They are.
It bombed because ... it's JC Penny.
JC Penney is a dump.
Karl from K,
An employee also gets 1.5x pay for working on an Observed U.S. holiday like Thanksgiving. Typically businesses that pay in the lower/middle hourly rates tend to have no trouble finding volunteers to take the extra pay. To pity an employee that volunteers to work for the extra cash is pretty funny stuff. Just another knee-jerk reaction in an attempt to paint the middle class as a constant victim. Sometimes, but not always.
Charlotte has no J.C. Penney stores within its city limits. That's saying something. (we've got no Sears stores inside our city limits either)
Ummm...what about the JCPenney in Carolina Place Mall?
That store is in Pineville, not Charlotte.
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