Tag: Department Stores

Department stores have a new playbook for this holiday season: How Macy’s, Dillard’s, and Nordstrom are getting their groove back this holiday season | Fortune

A Los Angeles Times headline in 1995 asked, “Can the department store survive?” A quarter century later, CNN proclaimed that “America has turned its back on big department stores.”

These are just two of many obituaries predicting the imminent demise of the U.S. department store—and all that pessimism has been backed by the data. Department stores have been losing market share for decades, first to big-box discounters like Walmart and Target in the 1980’s and 90’s, and more recently to Amazon. The department store’s percentage of total U.S. retail sales has fallen from about 14% in 1993 to only 2.6% last year.

But now, perhaps improbably, there are new signs of life in the retail format, with growth this year at Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Dillard’s, Nordstrom, and Belk—and signs of stabilization at J.C. Penney and Kohl’s.

The path that department stores are taking back into shoppers’ favor is a return to what made them popular in the first place: well-maintained and attractive spaces with attentive staff, a well-chosen selection of products, and enticing new brands. Many chains are finding that fewer stores are better, and have been shutting down locations to maintain quality and brand congruence.

With most products available online, often at lower prices, department stores must offer some real value to the brick-and-mortar shopper. But it’s an uphill climb to reverse some of the erosion of standards that have diminished the appeal of department-store shopping. Competition with the Walmarts, Targets, and T.J. Maxxes of this world led many department store companies to cut corners and skimp on retail flourishes, eroding their raison d’être in the shopper’s mind.

“You know what was tough about department stores?” Macy’s Inc. CEO Tony Spring recently told Fortune. “We didn’t execute well. A bad store, no matter what you call it, is going to fail.”

A string of bad seasons

And indeed many did fail. In 2020 alone, Neiman Marcus, J.C. Penney, Lord & Taylor, and Bon-Ton Stores filed for bankruptcy protection. They were already struggling before they were pushed over the edge by a pandemic that kept shoppers away for months. A couple of years before that, Barneys New York and Sears did the same, eventually going out of business altogether.

As Spring told Fortune, Macy’s recent success—including its best quarter for sales growth in three years—is thanks to a playbook focused on less store clutter, a more focused assortment of products and brands, and more staffing in key departments such as women’s shoes and dresses.

Rival Dillard’s, a primarily Southern and Southwestern chain with 290 stores, has also seen modest growth by following those basic retail precepts. Unlike many of its mall-based peers, Dillard’s has rarely deviated from its formula of neat stores and thoughtful product discovery, and is roughly the same size today as it was 15 years ago by revenue and store count—unlike chains that expanded rapidly, then closed scores of stores.

Another department store that appears to be staging a comeback is Nordstrom, which went private this summer to revitalize its business outside of Wall Street’s glare. It has seen sales rise 4.1% in the first half of 2025. Belk, a privately held Southern chain, is seeing growth too, though more modest, according to industry estimates.

Department stores, like this Nordstrom in Chicago, are making spaces that are more inviting to shoppers.
Jeff Schear/Getty Images for Nordstrom

Still, it’s too early to pop the champagne. Dillard’s and Macy’s modest comparable sales growth of about 1% last quarter is hardly the mark of a roaring retail renaissance. And Penney and Kohl’s are still seeing sales declines, albeit less severe than just a few quarters ago.

Meanwhile, some companies are still deep in the doldrums: Saks Global recently said its sales fell 13% last quarter. In that case, the decline is largely because vendors are not sending it enough merchandise given recent delays in getting payment from the debt-laden company. Clearly, department stores are not out of the woods.

Catering to the bargain-seekers

The holiday season, during which department stores get nearly a third of their annual sales, will be a major test of their nascent comeback. The Mastercard Economics Institute has forecast that sales will rise 3.6% November and December, a slower clip compared to last year’s holiday season. And shoppers are likely to be particularly bargain-hungry, meaning they will be holding out for deals, a trend department store executives are already seeing.

“Many Americans are more stressed than ever about holiday spending, and wallets are stretched,” JCPenney chief customer and marketing officer Marisa Thalberg said in a recent presentation of the retailer’s holiday season strategy. The company’s response? To offer more deals, and earlier in the season.

Kohl’s Chief Marketing Officer Christie Raymond expects shoppers will visit stores more often during the Thanksgiving to Christmas period, but buy less during each visit and gravitate to cheaper products as they feel the economic pinch.

“We are seeing trading down,” Raymond said at a media briefing in October at Kohl’s design office in Manhattan. “Whereas some customers were maybe purchasing a premium brand, we are seeing them trade down to private brands.” This could bode well for the success of Kohl’s recent efforts to refresh its long languishing store brands.

Even the high-end store Nordstrom, with its well-heeled clientele, is emphasizing more low-priced items than usual this year. At its New York flagship, Nordstrom has built a two-story area to showcase giftable items, with about 800 products that cost less than $100.

Back to the future

A century ago, department stores began a golden age in which they were at the forefront of America’s burgeoning consumer economy. They were grand behemoths, typically in city centers, where shopping was an event—rather than the constant pastime it is today, often done by scrolling on a device.

These were memorable experiences: a trip to JCPenney to buy a Sunday best suit; the thrill of choosing the perfect debutante ball gown at Neiman Marcus; or the much-anticipated purchase of a new household appliance at Sears.

In the 1960s, going shopping was still an event.
H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images

In the 1950’s, Macy’s, Sears and Penney began expanding with large, multi-level stores thanks to the mushrooming of suburban malls across the country.

But a couple of decades later, the rise of big-box retailers that boasted lower prices, like Walmart and Target, challenged that supremacy. And by the 1990’s, department stores were in secular decline. The rise of Amazon and e-commerce more broadly didn’t help.

Amid all this change, department stores started to seem rather old-fashioned, a sea of sameness offering tired brands in badly lit, boilerplate stores where everything seemed to eventually end up in the discount bin. Under pressure, department stores tried to cut margins by reducing staffing, which made them feel messy and untended.

And several leaned into consolidation—which in some ways compounded the problem. When Macy’s purchased May Department Stores in 2006 and acquired regional chains such as Marshall Field’s, it found itself with too many stores, too near each other.

Shifts in consumers’ tastes also dealt a blow: Customers were no longer wowed by being sprayed with perfume upon entry to the beauty section, preferring the less didactic way of selling beauty products that have made the more youth-friendly brand Ulta Beauty a phenomenon in the last decade.

Efforts to compete with Amazon during its ascent in the 2010s had department stores playing catchup on supply chain prowess and integrating stores with e-commerce—sometimes to the detriment of in-store experience. “They forgot what they existed for,” said Joel Bines, a former retail consultant with AlixPartners and a current director of North Carolina-based Belk. ”It became all about efficiency and conglomeration and homogenization.”

In search of fashion authority

Now the pendulum is swinging back toward a focus on how department stores look and feel for customers, the merchandise they sell, and on standing out from the others. A big part of that is undoing the expansions of previous decades: Macy’s is prioritizing 125 of its stores, or a third of its fleet, while closing dozens more stores in the next two years. And JCPenney shed hundreds of stores in its 2020 bankruptcy and is now down to 650 locations, from 1,100 a decade ago.

But as the adage goes in the retail industry, you can’t shrink your way back to greatness. Department stores still have to make a compelling case for consumers to come back.

And there’s ground to regain with the brands department stores sell as well. Luxury brands have sought to distance themselves from the increasingly shabby in-store experience and ubiquitous mark-downs at department stores. For years, fashion companies like Ralph Lauren pulled their products from Macy’s stores to sell more of their products direct to consumers online and at their own stores.

But now, Macy’s CEO Spring, who is credited with revitalizing Bloomingdale’s in the decade he led that chain, is betting that the retailer’s massive reach, with 40 million customers, combined with its improved stores, can restore the brand’s “fashion authority” and lure top brands back.

Department stores are also looking to partner with new brands. JCPenney, for instance, will be selling exclusive items by designer Rebecca Minkoff for the 2025 holiday season.

Winning back older customers

To recreate a premium shopping experience, department stores have to find the right balance between stocking enough variety to serve a range of customers and not cluttering stores with too many products. To that end, Nordstrom and Macy’s are among the chains trimming down their assortments.

That does leave retailers less margin for error and requires a better mastery of data analytics to improve demand forecasting—making sure that what is on offer matches what shoppers want. That will be a challenge for some chains. “They are dealing with this beast of too much data and not enough actionable insights,” says Shelley Kohan, a professor at Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and a former Macy’s executive, noting that this is an area where AI can help.

Still, even if all these chains do renew themselves, no one should expect them to suddenly re-emerge as a big threat to the likes of Walmart or T.J. Maxx. Trying to win new, younger shoppers is expensive and may end up being futile. Some analysts say that’s why department stores should focus on older shoppers, who have much more disposable income. “While some are chasing the finicky Gen Z and millennials, they should really be focused on recapturing Gen X,” says FIT’s Kohan.

Winning back those existing consumers who remember the glamor and delight of an old-fashioned department store shopping spree is the key, says Bines. “Your priors become buyers again, and the buyers become loyal,” he says. “It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. And then maybe you can win some new shoppers.”

Phil Wahba

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November 6, 2025
Former CEO is finally facing the music for alleged sex trafficking and prostitution ring during his time at Abercrombie

Millennials: You’ll remember walking into Abercrombie & Fitch in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. Loud, thumping music, perfume so strong you could barely think straight, and posters of half-naked men were all part of the experience—and a desire to feel “cool.”

David Turner/WWD/Penske Media—Getty Images

Mike Jeffries, Abercrombie’s former CEO, was behind that vision. And on Tuesday, he and his partner Matthew Smith were arrested in Florida in connection with sex trafficking-related charges, according to a federal indictment. The duo, along with an employee of theirs, James Jacobson, allegedly ran an international sex trafficking and prostitution ring from 2008 to 2015 that allegedly involved paying for secret sex with potentially dozens of men, including 15 unnamed victims.

The official indictment has been a long time coming. Last year, BBC released a documentary about Jeffries’ shady practices. The BBC investigation revealed that Jeffries and Smith allegedly used a middleman to find men to attend and participate in the sex events. Jeffries and Smith would allegedly engage in sexual activity with about four men at these events or “direct” them to have sex with one another, several attendees from the events told BBC. Jeffries’ personal staff dressed in Abercrombie uniforms and supervised the activity, according to the allegations, and staff members gave attendees envelopes filled with thousands of dollars in cash at the end of the events.

LAURENT FIEVET/AFP/GettyImages

The middleman “made it clear that unless I let him perform oral sex on me, I would not be meeting with Abercrombie & Fitch or Mike Jeffries,” David Bradberry, who was introduced to Jacobson in 2010 when he was 23 years old, told BBC. An agent posing as a model recruiter introduced Bradberry to Jacobson, who described himself as the gatekeeper to the “owners” of Abercrombie and Fitch, according to the BBC investigation.

The federal indictment included related allegations and more.

Jeffries’ shady past with Abercrombie

According to a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries wanted to make the 130-year-old retailer into the hearthrob teen clothing brand of the time, which he successfully did—but not without offending swaths of people. His interview pretty much sums up his marketing approach as only making it about “cool” people.

“Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla,” Jeffries told Salon. “You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”

Brooks Canaday/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images

By 2006, Abercrombie & Fitch’s earnings had risen for 52 straight quarters, with annual profits of more than $2 billion. Plus, the company had opened hundreds of new brick-and-mortar stores and launched three new labels, including Hollister.

“But the marketing approach that made A&F into a financial success also made it an HR and PR nightmare,” according to NPR. Abercrombie’s approach to marketing ignited a response from women through mock ads and a boycott call from the American Decency Association. Black, Latino, and Asian American employees in 2004 filed a class-action lawsuit against the company alleging minority applicants were discouraged from applying.

In the early 2010s, Abercrombie started going south financially as a result of age discrimination and hiring practice lawsuits, and Jeffries’ 2006 interview with Salon started being circulated again and went viral. In 2013, Jeffries was named as the worst CEO of the year by TheStreet’s Herb Greenberg. To boot, CNBC’s Jim Cramer named him to his “Wall of Shame.”

“Since its early trading in 1996, Abercrombie has barely beaten the S&P 500. It has dramatically trailed the index over the past one-, three- and five-year marks,” Greenberg wrote in 2013. “The past year, in particular, has been an abomination, leading activist firm Engaged Capital to demand his ouster.”

By 2014, same-store sales slumped for 11 straight quarters and two of its subsidiary brands, Ruehl No.925 and Gilly Hicks, shut down just a few years after launch. Teens were just also over Abercrombie’s style at that point, and the shopping mall era was coming to a close. And in 2016, Abercrombie was deemed the most-hated retailer by the American Customer Satisfaction Index for its hypersexualized marketing and controversies.

Abercrombie’s second wind

But as Abercrombie has distanced itself from Jeffries, the brand is making a major comeback after posting its best first-quarter earnings in company history this year. Abercrombie reported $1 billion in net sales, a 22% increase from 2023. Last year, its annual revenues were $5 billion.

YUKI IWAMURA/AFP—Getty Images

This was an epic comeback for the brand. CEO Fran Horowitz took the helm in 2017, revamping stores and inventories as well as expanding sizes and introducing clothing for a variety of lifestyles.

“We moved from a place of fitting in to creating a place of belonging,” Horowitz said in a 2022 speech at the Fordham University Gabelli School of Business’ fifth annual American Innovation Conference.

Sydney Lake

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October 23, 2024
Kmart Is Closing Its Last Full-Sized Store in the U.S. | Entrepreneur

Attention, Kmart shoppers: On October 20, Kmart’s last full-sized location in the mainland U.S., a store in Bridgehampton, New York, will close its doors.

That leaves just one smaller Kmart in Miami and three stores in the U.S. Virgin Islands as the only locations left — a far cry from the over 2,300 stores Kmart operated in its prime in the 1990s.

Related: Tupperware Unable to Keep Its Sales Strategy Fresh — Company Files for Bankruptcy

“Kmart was part of America,” U.S. retail history author Michael Lisicky told PBS. “Everybody went to Kmart, whether you liked it or not.”

^{The Kmart store in Bridgehampton, New York. Credit: Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images}

What happened? According to the company site, Kmart had a promising start. It opened its first store in 1962, the same year as Walmart and Target. By 1966, sales surpassed $1 billion.

However, in January 2002, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing competition and failed sales and marketing campaigns. At the time, Kmart closed about 600 stores and laid off 57,000 employees.

Related: Christmas Tree Shops to Close All 70 Locations: ‘I Wish Someone Could Save These Stores’

According to a 2002 analysis, although Kmart initially grew faster than its competitors, the company’s lack of technology investments hindered its growth. Its market position trapped between the trendier Target and the more price-competitive Walmart didn’t help either, because Kmart wasn’t able to define who its customers were.

Kmart emerged from Chapter 11 in May 2003 and acquired Sears about two years later for $11 billion. Meanwhile, sales continued to drop, falling from $37 billion in 2000 to $12.1 billion in 2014. The acquisition didn’t pan out either: Sears filed for bankruptcy in October 2018, emerging from it in 2022, and now has only about a dozen stores open in the U.S.

“Sears should have never gone away; Kmart was in worse shape, but not fatally so,” Mark Cohen, former CEO of Sears Canada and former director of retail studies at Columbia Business School, told PBS. “And now they’re both gone.”

Related: Music Retailer Sam Ash to Shut Down After 100 Years in Business

Sherin Shibu

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September 24, 2024
Macy’s rejects $5.8 billion takeover bid; Arkhouse threatens to go to shareholders

Macy’s Inc. said Sunday it has rejected an unsolicited bid by Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management to take the department-store chain private in a $5.8 billion deal, citing concerns over financing.

In a statement, Macy’s
M,
-1.67%
said Arkhouse and Brigade failed to address the board’s concerns over their ability to finance the deal, and found a “lack of compelling value in their non-binding proposal.”

“Following careful consideration and efforts to gather additional information from Arkhouse and Brigade, the board determined that Arkhouse and Brigade’s proposal is not actionable and that it fails to provide compelling value to Macy’s, Inc. shareholders,” Macy’s Chief Executive Jeff Gennette said in a statement. “We continue to be open to opportunities that are in the best interests of the company and all of our shareholders.”

Earlier Sunday, Arkhouse confirmed that it and Brigade had submitted a proposal to buy Macy’s for $21 a share on Dec. 1, and threatened to bring the matter directly to Macy’s shareholders if talks do not pick up this week. “We see the potential for a meaningful increase to our original proposal if we are granted access to the necessary due diligence,” Arkhouse added.

Also read: Macy’s real estate alone is worth nearly $3 billion more than investors’ bid, these analysts say

Macy’s shares jumped after the buyout bid was first reported in December, but have since lost some of those gains.

Last week, Macy’s said it will lay off 13% of its corporate staff — roughly 2,350 jobs — and close five stores in an effort to cut costs.

Macy’s stock is down about 23% over the past 12 months, compared to the S&P 500’s
SPX
22% gain.

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January 21, 2024
Macy’s to lay off 13% of corporate staff, close five stores

Department-store chain Macy’s Inc. plans to cut 2,350 jobs and close five stores, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, as the company tries to curb expenses and meet the demands of what it said was “an everchanging consumer and marketplace.”

The cuts, which amount to around 13% of Macy’s
M,
+0.39%
corporate staff and 3.5% of its staff overall, are part of an effort to shed costs, eliminate management layers and redirect spending toward improving customers’ shopping experience, the Journal said. The dismissals will begin on Jan. 26, according to a memo sent to employees cited by the publication.

“As we prepare to deploy a new strategy to meet the needs of an everchanging consumer and marketplace, we made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce by 3.5% to become a more streamlined company,” a Macy’s spokesperson said in a statement to MarketWatch.

The spokesperson said that the store closures were part of an effort to “reposition our store portfolio and evaluate the right mix of on- and off-mall locations,” adding that the five stores would close this year.

Shares of Macy’s were up 0.2% after hours on Thursday, after gaining 0.4% in the day’s trading.

The Journal reported that Macy’s plans to develop a more automated supply chain and would outsource some jobs. Citing a person familiar with the matter, the publication said the company would be “investing in areas that impact consumers, such as adding more visual-display managers to enhance the look of stores and upgrading digital functions to make online shopping more seamless.”

The job cuts were announced as the landscape for retailers remains uneven, as higher prices for groceries and other basics have hindered what inflation-hit shoppers can spend elsewhere.

“Despite our strong and tangible progress over the last few years, we remain under pressure,” according to the Macy’s memo cited by the Journal said.

The moves come as Macy’s President Tony Spring prepares to succeed the outgoing Jeff Gennette as the company’s chief executive next month. Macy’s is also facing a nearly $6 billion takeover bid by an investor group that’s looking to take the retailer private.

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January 18, 2024
Home Depot, Target, and More to Watch This Week

Home Depot, Target, Cisco, Deere, Walmart, and More Stocks to Watch This Week

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August 13, 2023
Does Nike have too many sneakers? Its financial results could tell us whether shoes will get cheaper.

Are stores getting more desperate to sell sneakers? Fourth-quarter results from Nike Inc. on Thursday will probably provide part of the answer.

Even as its some of its basketball shoes still put up double-digit sales gains — like those named after NBA icons LeBron James, Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo — the athletic-gear maker, like its rivals, has faced weaker consumer demand overall. With customers forced to spend more money on necessities over the past year, they’ve had less to spend on new shoes.

In March, Nike
NKE,
+0.19%
executives said that the demand backdrop remained “promotional” — one in which anyone selling sneakers and clothing was cutting prices more aggressively to attract customers. But ahead of Thursday’s results, some analysts also wondered whether the stalling demand has forced bigger changes to the way management thinks about its broader turn away from retailers — a core piece of its sales strategy.

Nike over recent years has embarked on a plan to rely less on shoe retailers for sales and more on sales made directly to customers through its own stores and online. But recently, it decided to start selling clothing again at Macy’s
M,
+3.58%
and shoes again at DSW, the shoe-store chain run by Designer Brands Inc.
DBI,
+4.32%
— this after ending partnerships with both retailers over the past two years.

The return to traditional retail has raised questions about whether Nike is looking to more aggressively clear product it’s had trouble selling, and whether management is re-evaluating the company’s go-it-alone sales strategy overall.

“The big question on our minds heading into [Nike’s] quarter is what is going on with the [direct-to-consumer] pivot?” Quo Vadis analyst John Zolidis said in a note on Monday. “Reopening Macy’s and DSW seems odd in context of previous dismissive statements about undifferentiated retail.”

He continued: “Further, neither of these retailers has a customer that correlates strongly with [Nike’s] highest-value segments. The easiest explanation is that [Nike] overestimated the dollars it could recapture from closed wholesale accounts and now has too much inventory it needs to clear.”

What to expect

Earnings: Analysts polled by FactSet expect Nike to earn 68 cents a share, down from 90 cents in the same quarter a year ago. Contributors to Estimize — a crowdsourcing platform that gathers estimates from Wall Street analysts as well as buy-side analysts, fund managers, company executives, academics and others — expect earnings per share of 75 cents.

Revenue: Analysts polled by FactSet expect $12.58 billion in sales for Nike. Forecasts from Estimize call for sales of $12.72 billion.

Stock price: Nike’s stock is only up 1.3% over the past 12 months. Shares got hit in September, after company executives warned of further price-cutting from rivals due to weaker demand. The stock rebounded later but gave up some gains in May. The stock was up 2% on Monday.

What analysts are saying

Nike in March said demand for product sold at full pricing remained solid. Still, sneaker chain Foot Locker Inc.
FL,
+2.09%
recently cut its outlook. Lots of Vans shoes are running at a discount, one analyst said last month, as the skater-centric brand competes with casual fare from the likes of Adidas
ADS,
+0.61%
and others.

Other analysts were also wondering about Nike’s return to Macy’s and DSW. But not everyone believed the move was a sign of deeper problems.

“Investors are worried that this is a reversal in Nike’s shift from wholesale to [direct-to-consumer], but we don’t think the strategy is broken,” BofA analyst Lorraine Hutchinson said in a research note on Wednesday. “We expect to hear an explanation of these moves on the [conference] call rather than an about-face on its focus on reducing undifferentiated wholesale.”

Still, the company faced concerns about sales abroad. Zolidis also said markets were increasingly worried about growth in China, whose recovery from pandemic lockdowns has stumbled.

“Our recent conversations with companies in China suggest that trends are mixed,” Zolidis said. “The consumer is more value oriented, and job uncertainty is higher.”

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June 29, 2023
Target’s stock snaps longest losing streak in 23 years as anti-LGBTQ+ backlash continues

Target Corp.’s stock is up 0.1% Friday after snapping its longest losing streak in 23 years amid an anti-LGBTQ+ backlash against the retail giant.

The stock ended Thursday’s session up 0.2% to snap the losing streak. Target
TGT,
+1.57%
shares had ended Wednesday’s session down 2.2%, marking their ninth consecutive decline, and the stock’s longest losing streak since an 11-day stretch that ended Feb. 24, 2000, according to Dow Jones data. Wednesday also marked the stock’s lowest close since Aug. 11, 2020.

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June 2, 2023
Target’s stock, on its longest losing streak in 23 years, downgraded at JPMorgan

Target Corp.’s stock, which is on its longest losing streak in 23 years, was downgraded to neutral from overweight Thursday by JPMorgan, which cited “too many concerns rising” in relation to the retail giant.

The stock ended Wednesday’s session down 2.2%, marking its ninth straight decline and the stock’s longest losing streak since an 11-day stretch that ended Feb. 24, 2000, according to Dow Jones data. Wednesday also marked the stock’s lowest close since Aug. 11, 2020.

Target…

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June 1, 2023
Macy’s sales fall short and company lowers full-year guidance to reflect challenged consumer

Macy’s Inc.’s stock slid 9% in premarket trading Thursday, after the department-store chain posted weaker-than-expected fiscal first-quarter sales and cut its full-year guidance to reflect a challenged consumer.

The New York-based company M posted net income of $155 million, or 56 cents a share, for the quarter to April 29, down from $286 million, or 98 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted per-share earnings were also 56 cents, ahead of the 45-cent FactSet consensus.

…

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June 1, 2023
How pickleball could help save America’s malls

When Andrew Pessano was looking to create a state-of-the-art indoor pickleball facility in southern New Jersey and take advantage of the surging interest in the sport, he considered building it from scratch. But he and his partners realized it would take at least two years and likely cost well over $1 million.

So, Pessano and his team found a different way to achieve their goal: They leased a vacant big-box space — formerly home to a Burlington
BURL,
+0.44%
store, in fact — and turned it into Proshot Pickleball, a membership facility replete with eight cushioned courts, viewing decks, a pro shop and a players lounge.

Pessano says that since opening in mid-February, he’s already signed up more than 300 paid members. “The first couple of months we’re busy, busy,” he adds.

Proshot Pickleball could be something of a model for the future of what is often described as the fastest-growing sport in the country; a game that shares elements with tennis, ping-pong and badminton. In short, pickleball could soon be coming to that vacant space in your local mall — or to that abandoned big-box store. (Consider all those soon-to-be-empty Bed Bath & Beyond locations.)

“Pickleball ‘will help America’s malls to become the social hub they once were.’”

The trend is already happening: A recent retail-outlook report from JLL, a company that tracks the commercial real-estate market, points to pickleball facilities in locations ranging from a former Saks Off Fifth store in Connecticut, to a shuttered Belk department-store location in Georgia.

Pickleball “court owners are targeting malls for expansion,” says the report.

Of course, no one is saying that pickleball won’t continue to be played in parks and other public spaces, or even people’s driveways. Inherent in the game’s appeal, say fans, is that it can be played just about anywhere. But there are notable factors driving the move into malls and other retail locations.

Begin with that surging interest in pickleball. Nearly 9 million Americans are now playing the game, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association reports — an astounding year-over-year increase of 85.7%.

All those players need places to play, but the lack of available public court space in many cities and towns has led to all sorts of skirmishes, with issues arising when players use tennis facilities or take up space in playgrounds. As one parent complained about the pickleballers when the turf war erupted at a New York City playground: “It’s not a coexistence, it’s a complete and utter takeover.”

See also: As pickleball players spend billions on the sport, they run into conflicts and controversy

That leaves more room for operators of private facilities, like the pickleball court owners that JLL cites, to enter the picture — and many concepts, even chains, are starting to emerge to address the demand. But where should they go? Again, building from scratch can take a lot of money, and time.

“Nearly 9 million million Americans are now playing pickleball, the Sports & Fitness Industry Association reports — an astounding year-over-year increase of 85.7%.”

Meanwhile, mall operators and landlords of other retail spaces, such as big-box stores, are continually looking for new concepts to bring into their spaces, especially as brick-and-mortar retail stores fight to stay relevant and afloat at a time when online shopping has become the norm for many Americans.

In turn, those concepts are more often about “experiences” rather than shopping, says James Cook, a research director at JLL. Think museums, golf simulators and pickleball.

It’s about redefining the retail landscape, Cook says. “The idea is this is something new and unique,” he adds of these emerging types of mall/big-box tenants, including pickleball facilities.

Mike Leigh, author of “Zen and the Art of Pickleball,” sees an especial logic to pickleball in malls. These retails spaces are all about bringing people together, something that is all too easily forgotten in a point-and-click world of online shopping. And pickleball is a game that’s inherently social because of its close-up nature.

So the two make a natural combo, Leigh says: Pickleball “will help America’s malls to become the social hub they once were.”

CityPickle, a New York City-based operator of pickleball facilities, opened a pop-up venue at the Hudson Yards development last year.

CityPickle

Still, there are plenty of arguments to the contrary, so this is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

America’s malls and other retail hubs have their share of empty spaces, but the situation may not be as dire as it seems, Cook says. The points to the current retail vacancy rate of 4.2% being “at historic lows,” noting that there’s been considerable recovery since the darkest days of the pandemic.

Moreover, he says, higher-end malls are doing especially well — and it’s those spaces that tend to be a good fit for experiential concepts like pickleball. In other words, these malls may like the idea, but they aren’t necessarily begging for tenants.

Plus, Cook says pickleball facilities can need lots of space — concepts often have a food-and-drink component for pre- and post-game socializing. And facility operators like to have outdoor space, if possible, for the warmer months. Such requirements can pose challenges in a traditional mall setup, he says.

“I think [pickleball] only works in some specific instances,” he says.

Pessano, of South Jersey’s Proshot Pickleball, points to another issue: If the space’s support columns aren’t situated far enough apart from one another, it will make it difficult to have enough courts to make for a viable business. And the ceiling height can’t be too low, either, he adds.

These discouraging realities notwithstanding, it appears pickleball operators will continue to consider abandoned mall spaces and big-box stores as a good option to create much-needed court space. Take CityPickle, a private operator that already set up a pop-up facility in New York City’s Hudson Yards mixed-use development in the past year, and is looking to establish permanent court spaces in the Big Apple and elsewhere.

CityPickle founders Mary Cannon and Erica Desai say they are considering abandoned retail locations as possibilities. They like the open space these places provide, and they say that landlords appreciate having tenants that bring the kind of buzz and energy that a pickleball facility offers.

“It makes so much sense,” says Cannon.

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May 17, 2023
Target stock swings to a gain after earnings beat was offset by a downbeat near-term outlook

Shares of Target Corp. seesawed to a gain early Wednesday, after the discount retailer reported fiscal first-quarter results that beat expectations and reiterated its full-year outlook, but provided a downbeat second-quarter profit view due to “softening sales trends.”

Net income for the quarter to April 29 fell to $950 million, or $2.05 a share, from $1.01 billion, or $2.16 a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding nonrecurring items, adjusted earnings per share fell to $2.05 from $2.19 but beat the FactSet consensus of $1.77.

Total revenue increased 0.6% to $25.32 billion, above the FactSet consensus of $25.26 billion, while same-store sales grew 0.7% to exceed the FactSet consensus for a 0.2% rise, as traffic rose 0.9%.

The stock rose 0.9% in premarket trading, but has swung from a loss of as much as 3.6% to a gain of as much as 2.4% after the results were reported.

“We came into the year clear-eyed about the challenges consumers are facing, and we were determined to build on the trust we’ve established with our guests,” said Chief Executive Officer Brian Cornell. “It’s required agility and the ability to flex across our multi-category portfolio as we lean into value and the product categories our guests need most right now.”

Cost of sales declined 0.4% to $18.39 billion, as gross margin improved to 27.4% from 26.7%.

The value of inventory fell 6.5% from the sequential fourth quarter, and dropped 16.4% from a year ago, to $12.62 billion as of April 29.

“[W]e now expect shrink will reduce this year’s profitability by more than $500 million compared with last year,” said CEO Cornell. “While there are many potential sources of inventory shrink, theft and organized retail crime are increasingly important drivers of the issue.

Looking ahead, Target said it was planning for a wide range of sales outcomes, given “softening sales trends” in the first quarter.

For the second quarter, the company expects same-store sales to be down in the low-single digit percentage range, compared with the FactSet consensus for a 0.1% increase. And adjusted EPS for the current quarter is expected to be $1.30 to $1.70, below expectations of $1.95.

For the full year, Target reiterated its guidance for same-store sales growth of 0.7% and for adjusted EPS of $7.75 to $8.75. That compares with the FactSet consensus for same-store sales growth of 0.6% and for adjusted EPS of $8.36.

The stock has gained 5.3% year to date through Tuesday, while the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund
XLY,
-0.41%
has run up 14.1% and the S&P 500 index
SPX,
-0.64%
has advanced 7.0%.

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May 17, 2023
Walmart, Alibaba, Target, and More Stocks to Watch This Week

Walmart, Alibaba, Target, and More Stocks to Watch This Week

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May 14, 2023
Century 21 Department Store to Reopen in Manhattan in May | Entrepreneur

TikTok loves a good thrift haul, but New Yorkers have long known the euphoric feeling of snagging a designer deal off-the-rack.

Century 21 Department Store, once downtown Manhattan’s designer discount Mecca, is reopening its flagship at 22 Cortland Ave. across from the World Trade Center on May 16. The news was first reported by Crains New York.

After being in business for 60 years, Century 21 filed for bankruptcy in 2020, even though the company made $747 million in 2019, per Gothamist. Court filings indicate that pandemic-related diminished foot traffic in lower Manhattan and the e-commerce business, in general, hurt the company. Century 21 closed all 13 stores in Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania during the restructuring.

“Since 1961, when Al and Sonny Gindi opened what was then a small store in Downtown Manhattan, we have been proud to provide shoppers with unmatched access to designer brands at amazing prices,” Century 21 co-CEO IG Gindi said at the time of the closing. “While we wish that Century 21 could continue to be a must-see shopping destination for so many, we are proud of the pioneering role it has played in off-price retail and the iconic brand it has become.”

Reports say the store will be half the size of the original.

It’s official: Century 21’s flagship store is reopening on May 16th. Downtown at 22 Cortlandt St.

Great to see a NYC icon coming back to life.https://t.co/M58pwLl5lk pic.twitter.com/B5wiLnZxHJ

— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) May 1, 2023

Entrepreneur Staff

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May 3, 2023
Nordstrom Report Hints at Weaker Spending by Wealthy Shoppers

Nordstrom’s holiday season sales were softer than prepandemic levels, the company said.

Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Nordstrom

If
Nordstrom’s
latest sales update is anything to go by, high-income shoppers are finally starting to feel the pinch of a slowing economy.

The luxury department store, whose product lineup is aimed mainly at wealthier people, said late on Thursday that holiday sales were softer than hoped. It is the latest retailer to warn that consumers took a more cautious approach to holiday shopping in 2022.

“The holiday season was highly promotional, and sales were softer than prepandemic levels,” said CEO Erik Nordstrom in a news release late Thursday. “While we continue to see greater resilience in our higher income cohorts, it is clear that consumers are being more selective with their spending given the broader macro environment.”

Shares of Nordstrom (ticker:
JWN
) were largely unchanged in early Friday trading, with a gain of 0.1% to $17.47.

The company also updated its financial forecasts for fiscal 2022, the 12 months ending January 2023. It now expects revenue growth to be at the low end of the range of 5% to 7% it had forecast. Holiday sales fell by 3.5% in 2022, driven by a 7.6% decline in the company’ Nordstrom Rack banner and a 1.7% decrease in core Nordstrom sales.

Nordstrom also said that the need to sell off outdated inventory weighed heavily on profit and margins. Adjusted earnings per share will range between $1.50 and $1.70, compared with the company’s prior call for $2.30 to $2.60. The consensus call among analysts surveyed by FactSet was for earnings to land at $1.81 for fiscal 2022.

Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes margin will be 3.1% to 3.3%, compared with the 4.3% to 4.7% management had predicted.

While costly to the bottom line, discounting heavily during the holiday season may actually be better for Nordstrom in the long run. The company expects year-end inventory levels to be down by a double-digit percentage compared with last year, putting them roughly at 2019 levels.

“We believe this reduction, coupled with cleaner inventory (~flat to 2019), may actually have been better than feared,” wrote BMO Capital Markets analyst Simon Siegel in a research note. Siegel maintained a Market Perform rating and trimmed his target for the stock price to $20 from $23.

Still, it isn’t an easy time to be a department store. Nordstrom’s announcement comes weeks after
Macy’s
provided investors with a similar update, saying sales would come in at the low to middle end of the range it had forecast as a result of unexpected lulls in demand outside of the peak shopping weekends.

On Wednesday, the Census Bureau reported that department stores’ retail sales fell by 6.6% in December from November, and were down 0.6% from December 2021.

Analysts have also expressed concern about what Nordstrom’s guidance means for demand from high-end consumers, whose buying has remained fairly resilient despite macroeconomic challenges.

For
Piper Sandler
‘s Edward Yruma, who the revision indicates that high-income shoppers may be “undergoing a cyclical slowdown,” driven by layoffs in white-collar industries, a volatile stock market, and a weak housing market. He maintained a Neutral rating on the stock.

Write to Sabrina Escobar at sabrina.escobar@barrons.com

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January 20, 2023
Macy’s stock slides as holiday lulls weigh on sales forecast and execs predict difficulties into 2023

Shares of department-store chain Macy’s Inc. slid 8% in after-hours trading on Friday after the retailer gave a more downbeat forecast on its fourth-quarter sales, with management citing big “lulls” in the holiday-shopping season and saying customers would likely feel the squeeze from inflation into next year.

Executives said they expected those sales to land in the “low-end to mid-point” of prior expectations for between $8.161 billion to $8.401 billion. They said they expected adjusted earnings per share to be within its previously forecast range of $1.47 to $1.67.

“Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales were in line with our expectations, while the week leading up to and following Christmas were ahead,” Macy’s
M,
+2.64%
Chief Executive Jeff Gennette said in a statement. “However, the lulls of the non-peak holiday weeks were deeper than anticipated.”

“Based on current macro-economic indicators and our proprietary credit card data,” he continued, “we believe the consumer will continue to be pressured in 2023, particularly in the first half, and have planned inventory mix and depth of initial buys accordingly.”

Macy’s issued the sales and profit figures as Wall Street parses consumer behavior during the holiday season. Adobe on Thursday said online sales surpassed $210 billion and beat expectations. Costco Wholesale Corp., a day earlier, reported an increase in December sales, even though online sales fell.

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January 6, 2023
Running an errand on New Year’s Day? Here is what’s open and closed | CNN Business
New York
CNN
—

Many of us will close out 2022 with celebrations that stretch well into the wee hours of New Year’s Day.

But when Jan. 1, 2023 gets underway, we’ll just as likely return to familiar routines and habits – caffeine? – and even add in some new resolutions, like a morning walk or healthier eating.

If that’s the case, there are several grocery chains, drug stores and restaurant chains nationwide open for business on Jan 1, 2023.

But check hours of operation at your local store. Several will have modified hours and are either opening later or closing earlier on New Year’s Day.

Also, with January 1, 2023 falling on a Sunday, for most federal employees, Monday, January 2, will be treated as a paid holiday. This means post offices, government offices and banks will be closed on Monday.

Grocery stores:

Whole Foods

Safeway

Albertsons

Wegmans

Kroger

Stop & Shop

Drug stores:

CVS (pharmacy hours will vary based on location)

Walgreens (pharmacies closed on Jan.1)

Rite Aid

Discounters:

Walmart

Target

BJ’s

Dollar General

Five Below (check for modified store hours)

Department stores:

Nordstrom

JC Penney

Kohl’s

Macy’s

Marshalls

TJ Maxx (check for modified store hours)

Home improvement and home goods stores:

Lowe’s

Bed, Bath & Beyond

IKEA
USPS: Local post offices will be open on New Year’s Eve. Post offices will be closed on Jan. 1 and Jan. 2. Mail will not be picked up and will not be delivered.

FedEx: Ground and Express services are closed on Jan. 1. On Jan. 2, ground service is open but express service is closed.

Government offices are closed on Jan. 2.

Banks: Most banks typically follow the federal holiday calendar. This means teller services will be closed.

New York Stock Exchange closed on Jan. 2
Stores
Costco closed on Jan 1

Trader Joe’s closed on Jan 1

Aldi closed on Jan 1

Sam’s Club closed on Jan 1
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December 31, 2022
Eat, drink and be merry: Here’s where shoppers have been spending the most money this holiday season

Restaurants are set to become the biggest winners of a holiday season that could turn out to be the most normalized since the onset of the pandemic.

That’s according to a new Mastercard SpendingPulse survey released on Monday, which showed spending at dining establishments surging 15.1% over the 2021 holiday period. Total retail expenditures for the Nov. 1–to–Dec. 24 period in 2022 rose 7.6%, with in-store spending up 6.8% and online spending up 10.6%.

Restaurant spending beat out several other categories, such as apparel, where spending was up 4.4% from 2021, and electronics and jewelry, where a respective 5.3% and 5.4% less were spent, and department stores, which saw spending rise 1%.

“This holiday retail season looked different than years past,” said Steve Sadove, senior adviser for Mastercard and former CEO and chairman of Saks Inc. “Retailers discounted heavily but consumers diversified their holiday spending to accommodate rising prices and an appetite for experiences and festive gatherings postpandemic.”

Government data for November showed consumer spending was up just 0.1%, reflecting cautiousness among households and price cutting by retailers to lure those hesitant shoppers in. But the data also showed more spending on holiday recreation and travel, expected to go in the books as a busy season even if deadly winter storm may have wreaked havoc on the plans of many Americans over the Christmas weekend.

Of course, even as some merrymakers felt confident enough to make more plans and see more friends and family this year, the virus of course continues to cause illness and death. The U.S. reported 70,000 newly diagnosed cases for the first time since September on Thursday, while 422 people died of COVID-19 on Wednesday.

Don’t miss: As COVID cases rise, how to steer clear of viruses during the holiday season

Also see: 4 tips for staying healthy while traveling during this ‘tripledemic’ cold and flu season

The Mastercard SpendingPulse data measure in-store and online retail sales for all payment forms and are not inflation-adjusted.

As for the companies that might be benefiting from that increased traffic, the year-end cheer probably won’t be enough to make a dent in what has been a difficult year with would-be consumers juggling worries over inflation, rising interest rates and a war in Europe.

The Invesco Dynamic Leisure & Entertainment exchange-traded fund
PEJ,
+0.79%,
whose holdings include Chipotle Mexican Grill
CMG,
+0.32%,
McDonald’s
MCD,
+0.68%
and First Watch Restaurant Group
FWRG,
+0.42%,
has gained 6.5% to date in the fourth quarter and is down 20% for the year as of Thursday. The broad benchmark S&P 500
SPX,
+0.59%
is poised for a nearly 20% loss in 2022.

Read: How a Santa Claus rally, or lack thereof, sets the stage for the stock market in first quarter

And: Best stock picks for 2023: Here are Wall Street analysts’ most heavily favored choices

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December 26, 2022
JCPenney was once a shopping giant. Can it make a comeback? | CNN Business

New York
CNN Business
—

Marc Rosen didn’t flinch when he was offered the top job at JCPenney last year.

A stalwart of twentieth-century retail for middle-class Americans seeking affordable clothing and home furnishings, JCPenney has struggled for more than a decade and fell into bankruptcy shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

But Rosen, a retail veteran who previously worked at Walmart and Levi’s, said he “did not have any personal hesitancy at all” about trying to revitalize the 120-year-old brand and protect JCPenney from extinction like Barney’s, Lord & Taylor, Century 21 and other shuttered retailers.

“I believe in taking on large scale transformation,” Rosen, 54, told CNN Business in a video interview this month. “There was an opportunity to really take this brand and make it relevant again.”

Rosen is staking his turnaround plan on appealing to “America’s diverse working families.”

The typical customer at JCPenney has a median household income of between $50,000 to $75,000. Roughly 30% of the retailer’s customers are Black, Indigenous and people of color, according to the company, a larger share than many competitors

So JCPenney is chasing these shoppers with an overhauled beauty strategy after a long partnership with Sephora ended. It has remodeled stores and added new major brands and private-label clothing and home furnishings’ labels. The company has also improved its technology and online experience to draw more online sales. Just a quarter of JCPenney’s sales are online, trailing rivals.

Rosen said customers now are shopping at JCPenney more frequently, the first time that has happened for the brand in years, and it’s regaining market share in key departments such as home goods. (JCPenney does not break out sales publicly.)

But there are signs of pressure: visits to all JCPenney stores were down 29% as of October from the same time a year ago, according to data from Placer.ai. In October, traffic to JCPenney’s website increased only 1.26% from a year ago, according to data from SimilarWeb.

Now, a year into Rosen’s tenure, he faces his biggest test at JCPenney yet: the holiday shopping stretch. And it comes at an uncertain moment for the US economy and shoppers.

The company said it’s off to a strong start to the holiday season. But JCPenney’s main customers are feeling strained by the highest inflation in 40 years and they have shown signs of pulling back on discretionary goods— the bulk of what JCPenney sells.

Rosen also has to dig out from years of mismanagement and failed strategies at the company.

The company faces unrelenting pressure from much larger retailers such as Amazon

(AMZN), Walmart

(WMT) and Target

(TGT). TJX

(TJX), the owner of TJMaxx and Marshalls and other “off-price” retailers that have undercut the department stores’ model by selling designer brands at bargain prices.

“The future is going to be a challenging one because it’s difficult for department stores to navigate, even under the best circumstances,” said Erin Schmidt, a senior analyst at Coresight Research, a retail advisory and research firm. “The competition is really fierce.”

JCPenney started as the Golden Rule, a dry goods store, in Kemmerer, Wyoming, in 1902.

Its founder, James Cash Penney, quickly expanded the business and by 1917, there were 175 stores, later renamed JCPenney. By 1929, on the eve of the stock market crash and Great Depression, JCPenney had 1,000 stores.

Its stores were known for their low prices. Merchandise could be bought only with cash, not on credit.

JCPenney survived the Depression and by 1950, Fortune Magazine declared the company the “King of Soft Goods.” Penney himself became known as the “Man with a Thousand Partners.”

By the time he died in 1971, JCPenney had more than 1,600 stores, many in newly-built suburban malls, and was the fifth largest US retailer.

But the company’s mid-market appeal was tested by growing competition during the 1980s and 1990s. Discount stores including Walmart and Target spread, stealing away JCPenney’s budget-conscious customers.

The company was hit hard by the Great Recession in 2008. It lost shoppers to discount stores and struggled to bring them back as the economy began to rebound.

By the end of 2010, JCPenney’s sales had fallen 10% from their 2006 high of about $20 billion, and the company attracted the scrutiny of hedge fund manager Bill Ackman. Ackman bought up a chunk of Penney and installed Ron Johnson, Apple’s former head of stores, as CEO.

Without testing shoppers’ reactions first, JCPenney under Johnson changed its advertisements, its logo and its store designs.

The chain ditched top private-label brands with loyal followings and introduced new ones that had little relevance to its middle-income customers. And it ended coupons, a move that alienated loyal shoppers.

JCPenney’s sales plunged $4.3 billion in 2012, a 25% drop from the previous year. Johnson left in 2013, 17 months into the job.

The company cycled through several CEOs and strategies in the following years and brought back appliances for the first time in decades, a move that didn’t resonate with customers. The company was unprofitable every year beginning in 2011 and its sales fell each year starting in 2015.

In May of 2020, soon after the Covid-19 pandemic began and JCPenney was forced to close stores temporarily, the company filed for bankruptcy after 118 years in business.

At the time, JCPenney had more than 800 stores and 85,000 employees.

JCPenney has around 670 stores today and has little debt for the first time in years.

The company is owned by mall landlords Simon Property Group

(SPG) and Brookfield Asset Management

(BAM). The two firms rescued JCPenney out of bankruptcy for $1.75 billion in the fall of 2020. It was their interest to do so. JCPenney was a key tenant at hundreds of malls and a liquidation would have left vacancies in their shopping centers.

During the bankruptcy process, JCPenney restructured its debt and closed more than 200 stores.

Rosen said JCPenney now has the financial flexibility to invest in upgrading its technology, supply chain and revamping stores under under its new owners.

“That alignment with ownership is critical, especially as you’re going through a transformation that requires significant investment,” he said.

Instead of chasing new shoppers, as several of Rosen’s predecessors tried to do, he has built a strategy centered on convincing existing budget-focused customers to visit more frequently and buy a wider array of goods at JCPenney instead of other stores.

The company is attempting to highlight merchandise and services like hair salons and family portrait offerings that resonate with the its core working-class families. Teachers are the number one profession among its customers, so JCPenney has focused on ensuring stores have clothing they want to wear to work.

JCPenney’s 14-year partnership with Sephora ended in 2020 and it has started to replace many Sephora shops with new beauty departments. Roughly 20% of the products in new beauty areas come from a partnership with Thirteen Lune, an e-commerce company that features brands started by founders of color.

“Customers want to see brands that are brought to them by Brown and Black founders, and they want to see brands that look relevant to their skin types,” Rosen said.

Retail experts say that JCPenney is improving under Rosen and his strategy to target different customers than competitors is shrewd. Stores are better lit than they were before the bankruptcy and top vendors are selling merchandise to the company again.

“A lot of people in the industry wrote them off,” said David Katz, chief marketing officer at Randa Apparel & Accessories, which makes Levi’s, Dockers, Haggar and other brands. “Today, they are a good partner. We’re giving them a lot more financial credit than we used to. We are developing more products for them because we have confidence they’ll be able to sell it effectively.”

Still, JCPenney faces both short-term challenges and long-term questions about its survival.

Inflation is squeezing customers, particularly its middle-income shoppers. It’s not the only retailer facing that problem – Kohl’s said last week that its middle-income customers are buying fewer items when they shop and switching to private brands.

Rosen said that more JCPenney customers are buying the company’s lowest-priced products and switching to its cheaper private brands. The company plans to offer some products at 2019 prices during the holidays, including its St. John’s Bay cable sweater.

The bigger question remains whether there is a place for JCPenney in the changing era of retail and if it can draw younger customers.

Stiff competition has taken a toll on the entire department store landscape, including Kohl’s

(KSS), Nordstrom

(JWN) and Macy’s

(M).

JCPenney can’t solely rely on winning more business from existing shoppers with limited discretionary ability, said Schmidt from Coresight. The chain needs to attract new shoppers, too. But winning new customers has never been harder.

“They’re doing some really good things in terms of their positioning,” Schmidt said. “But the department store is a tough place to be. It will be a challenging road.”

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November 27, 2022
Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass Resigns to Join Levi Strauss

Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass Resigns to Join Levi Strauss

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November 8, 2022