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JCPenney

Post-Christmas Sales Proliferate

Major retailers are offering post-Christmas, yearend, and clearance sales to lure shoppers back into stores during what has so far been a dismal retail season that has left retailers with bulging inventories they need to clear to make room for spring inventory, writes US News & World Report.

This year’s shorter holiday-shopping season—27 days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, compared with 32...
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Retailers’ Balance Sheets Tell All

As holiday season sales results come rolling in, analysts stipulate that the downturn in sales may push even more retailers into bankruptcy court. But sales trends are not the only measure of a retailer’s health, Barron’s writes.

To distinguish the companies with promise from those that are truly in danger of going under, it examined other factors on the corporate balance sheet, like ratios of...
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Wal-Mart Only Retail Winner in Bleak Christmas Shopping Season

Wal-Mart is the only real retail winner during the 2008 holiday shopping season, which is presaging more retail bankruptcies in the year ahead, according to C. Britt Beemer, CEO of America’s Research Group (ARG), who issued his 2008 “Winners and Losers” list of retailers.

The “Winners and Losers” (complete list below) are determined by how well they did in retaining Christmas customers from...
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Kmart Harnesses Power of Influential Bloggers

Kmart kick-started a social-networking campaign by giving six well-known bloggers $500 gift certificates to go on a shopping spree in a Kmart store—and then share their experience with their readers.

The bloggers could write anything at all, positive or negative, and all of them clearly disclosed the arrangement in their posts, writes MediaPost.

The purpose was to get people talking about Kmart...
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Consumers Spend Less for Xmas, Shop at Fewer Retailers; Wal-Mart an Exception

The number of consumers saying they will spend less for Christmas gifts is at an all time high this year, at 40.1%, nearly double last year’s (23.0%)—and approaching triple the proportion of those saying so in the previous three years, according to the America’s Research Group/UBS Christmas 2008 Survey.

Of those spending less, job fears motivate 63.6% this year, vs. 0% last year. The big...
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State of U.S. Same Store Sales - November 2008 Data Update

RetailerDaily has compiled comparable store sale data from the SEC filings of ten major U.S. retailers spanning 2007 and 2008 up to the most recently released November numbers. The data excludes fuel sales (which would have distorted numbers because of high gas inflation in 2008) and is available in Excel format from the link below:

Among the highlights this year, Wal-Mart shows more...
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Black Friday Traffic to Online-Shopping Sites Up 10%

Web traffic from home and work to the Nielsen Online Holiday eShopping Index increased 10% year over year on Black Friday, growing from 28.8 million unique visitors in 2007 to 31.7 million unique visitors in 2008, Nielsen Online reported (pdf). The index tracks more than 120 representative online retailers.

Below, additional findings released by Nielsen Online.

Category Growth

Consumer...
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JCPenney, 7-Eleven Partner to Promote Each Other

Retailers are getting more creative in getting frugal consumers to part with money, and they are often enlisting each other’s assistance to generate customer traffic.

In a test across Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami, 7-Eleven and JCPenney are cross-promoting each other to see whether they can generate incremental sales, reports the Dallas Morning News.

At JCPenney stores, sales...
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JCPenney Deserts Australian Web Operations

JCPenney is shutting down the e-commerce website it launched in September for Australian customers, reports Inside Retailing.

To legally terminate the agreement, JCPenney is using an “out clause” that is part of the original contract, explained Sharon Hooker, operations manager of JPIC Australia, the company managing the site under an exclusive license arrangement.

“We have to close our doors,...
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JCPenney, Nordstrom Q3 Profits Plunge

JCPenney Co. reported a 52% plunge in profits during the third quarter ended Nov. 1 as net earnings totaled just $124 million ($0.56 cents/share), down from $261 million ($1.17/share) in the same period last year.

Revenue fell 9% to $4.32 billion from $4.73 billion in 3Q07, reports the AP (via Forbes.com).

The company attributed the loss to the consumer-spending cutback that has been affecting...
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