As is the case of all blogs, this is my opinion. But it’s also common sense. My CAT could have predicted this if he could speak English.  Or cared.. JC Penney just posted the worst quarter in the HISTORY of retail…if you believe the news.  Well duh. Anybody I talk to isn’t surprised at all because JCP had it ALL wrong. 

First, they decided to put all of their effort into courting a demographic that wouldn’t love them UNLESS they were rather last retail store on the planet. This IS their mother’s store no matter how much they change the logo. 

Second and most important, they completely disregarded the demographic who handed them their success. Ask any Baby Boomer EX JC Penney shopper.  They’ll tell you. 

JCP got sloppy and dirty and unfriendly to their customers…the ones who handed them profits year after year. They got fat and lazy and thought they didn’t have to work to keep us. Then instead of looking inward and doing some hard evaluation, they blamed us…their bread and butter…and they kicked us to the curb. 

So we’ve voted with our feet and our wallets. We went where we were wanted and importantly, valued. If JCP wants to survive, they need to BEG us to come back. They should restock their shelves with the things WE like and want, they need to price them competitively and make sure they are of the quality we once expected from JCP…and they should beg for our forgiveness. Maybe then we’ll stop thinking how they are getting EXACTLY what they deserve and give them another chance to appreciate us. Or maybe not. 

And by the way…if they wanted to appeal to the Old Navy crowd, they should have changed the NAME as well as the logo. DUH.  Even with that, we don’t need another Target or Old Navy and…we are still the ones with the discretionary money to keep you in business. 

I think that’s worth a day of CEO salary.