Company Overview
Highlights
One of the largest department store, catalog, and e-commerce retailers in the United States.
The company is facing stiff competition from discount competitors such as Wal-Mart and Target, and has been downsizing in the past several years in an attempt to keep its revenue margins up.
Number 118 on the Fortune 500.
J.C. Penney is one of America’s largest department store retailers, operating 1,090 J.C. Penney department stores throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. The company also sells merchandise via its catalog business and website—its fastest growing sales outlet.
J.C. Penney traces its roots back to 1902, when James Cash Penney opened a Wyoming dry goods store with two partners whom he later bought out. By the 1920s, the corporation operated some 1,400 stores from coast to coast. In recent years, the retail chain has struggled financially, culminating in 2008 with a profit decrease of eight percent. It downsized in response, closing stores and laying off employees. It has also sold non-core assets, like drugstore chain Eckerd, to raise money and refocus on fashion and housewares.
In order to concentrate on fashion, CEO Myron Ullman is expanding private-label brand offerings to boost sales. In 2008, Penney’s launched the American Living Collection, developed exclusively for the company by Polo Ralph Lauren, and the Linden Street home collection. In 2009, it premiered the Cindy Crawford Style collection. Ullman has also signed exclusive deals with popular designers Liz Claiborne and Nicole Miller. The company also recently launched a new private label for lingerie, Ambrielle, and teamed up with cosmetics supplier Sephora, creating ministores within Penney’s to attract younger women.
J.C. Penney, along with rival department store Macy's, is determined to make itself Middle America's department store brand of choice to survive (if not thrive) in a retail environment heavy with Target and Wal-Mart on one end and Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom on the other. J.C. Penney set aside approximately $3 billion to open 50 stores per year until 2011, but had to downscale this goal to 35 stores in 2008 and 20 in 2009 due to the slowing economy. In 2007, Penney’s announced it would be opening its first Manhattan store on Sixth Avenue—right near the iconic Manhattan Macy’s location, slated to open Summer 2009.