Brief History Of The JC Penney Corporation

It all began on April 14, 1902 when James Cash Penney founded in the small town of Kemmerer, Wyoming, the Golden Rule store, which had as slogan "to serve the public, as nearly as we can, to its complete satisfaction". The 26-year-old boy had the nickname "Cash" due to his opposition to moral credit. For in your store, selling merchandise only in cash. Initially, the store, in partnership with two merchants, Guy Johnson and Thomas Callahan, sold clothing and accessories, in addition to small varied products. The society was undone a few years later. Only in 1913, with the help of his partner, William Henry McManus, the shops have been called JC Penney. In the Decade of 1920 and 1930 the company had an astonishing growth, opening almost 1,250

From 1958 the company recorded strong increase in its sales, much because of the start of sale to credit, after decades selling its products only to Vista. In 1963 was launched the first catalog of the network, which later became one of the icons of the JC Penney brand, reaching sales of U $200,000,000 at the end of this decade; In addition to inaugurating the first store outside the American continent, located in the state of Alaska. Three years later, JC Penney owned stores open in all American states. His first shop abroad was inaugurated in the year 1968 in Puerto Rico. On February 12, 1971, the founder, James Cash Penney, died at the age of 95. To pay tribute to his great commander, all the network stores remained closed for half a day. It was still this year that the company adopted a new logo, used for more than 36 years. In this decade, the shops JC Penney, due to the great reputation in selling quality products and providing good customer service, began to be known as anchors in the malls centers where they were located, adopting definitively the label of the department

He wanted it to be "the favorite place to go shopping in America", for which they settled from cafes, to playgrounds for children.

One year after introducing the new strategy, the results were devastating: The company's turnover was the lowest since 1987, moving from a net profit of 389 million dollars in 2010, to losses of 985 million in 2012. The truth is that Johnson never believed in JC Penney's culture, he didn't respect the brand or his clients. Moreover, his arrogance prevented him from seeing in time that his changes were not the right ones. He once blamed clients for the failure of their strategy, saying that they "needed to be educated about how pricing strategies work."

Despite trying to undertake a reform that sought to improve the company, the reality is that it did not even worry about asking customers if they liked the current system. In announcing the new pricing strategy, he was asked why not do a little test to see if he would succeed and his answer was emphatic: "We didn't test at Apple." On the other hand, the logo was classified as the worst logo of 2011, so it had to be renewed once again in 2012. In short, Johnson tried to turn a business model into something that is not, and in something that his clients don't want it to