JCPenny.com -caution-the retailer's site is jcpenney, not jcpenny

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JCPenney

JCPenney’s is a world wide known company which contains a chain of department stores all over the U.S.A. The prolific company owns more than 1000 stores and includes also several departments such us Jewelry and Watch repair, Optical or Photo Studios. The Plano, Texas based company has a history of over 100 years and its strong economical achievements were highlighted through the inclusion in the famous Fortune 500 list.

Website

When launched, in 1998, the JCPenney’s internet store, jcpenney.com rapidly became one of the most prodigious apparel and home furnishing sites on the internet. Statistics proved that JCPenney’s online store registered the highest rate of converting site visitors into real buyers and in 2005 marked the one billion dollar revenue for the first time in its history.

This highlights the approach of the company towards its customers. Throughout the entire website there isn’t even a single reference concerning its investors. Par excellence jcpenney.com is a pure commercial website. From this perspective, the website appears extremely successful. The common features of a corporate website are still there, but occupy a rather marginal spot and are clearly intended only to provide a sense of completeness to the site rather than truly being useful. .

History of the Company

Established in 1902 in Plano, Texas the store created by James Cash Penney and William Henry McManus was initially called “The Golden Rule”, but in 1913 was changed after the majority of the shares were passed to James Penney. Seven years after the opening of the first store, JC Penney relocated the headquarters to salt Lake City(1909) and then Buffalo(1914) in order to simplify the buying and transporting of goods.

One of the strangest aspects in the JCPenney’s history it is represented by the financial crisis in 1929, the Great Depression leaving James Penney in ruin. It was a dark period and Penney almost mentally collapsed. He was treated in Battle Creek Sanitarium and in the hospital’s chapel, Penney rediscovered religion. He became a born-again Christian and after recovering from the financial crisis he got involved in many charitable acts between 1930 and 1940 so in 1954 he founded James C. Penney Foundation

After 22 years of remarkable activity the company opened its 500th store in Hamilton, Missouri. The store no. 1000 was launched in Beloit, Kansas. In 1941 owning 1600 stores in 48 states, JC Penney started advertising its company and twelve years later issued its first catalog, distributed by the Milwaukee Catalog center all over USA. The company acquired a bank and named it JC Penney National Bank, becoming able this way to issue its own MasterCard and Visa cards.

In the next few years Penney Company registered an ever increasing profit and acquired a chain of drugstores (“Thrift Drug”) and “Supermarkets Interstate” becoming in 1993 the largest catalog retailer company in the United States. In 2004 however JCPenney abandoned the drug store division, focusing on the evolution of the 14 recently opened stores.

Nowadays, Penney stores can be located mostly in the shopping malls and not in the downtown areas as they traditionally used to be found. As the time passed new challenges appeared and thus imposed a few significant changes in the functioning of JCPenney in order to successfully compete with the other giants in the industry, such us Wal-Mart and Target. A series of improvements were made, in 2007 the company launched a lingerie label (Ambrielle) and a cosmetic one (Sephora).

Impact on the Popular Culture

The impact of JCPenney in the common culture is intertwined with the impact this chain had on individuals. With such a long history it quickly became an anchor of stability in the minds of many people. Affectionately called Penney, this brand made its way into the most unlikely places. The cult movie “Back To The Future” is perhaps one of the best examples on how this brand permeated popular culture, by appearing in one of the key scenes.

The image JCPenney enjoys is not however entirely positive. The company saw itself under some undesirable focus when several gay rights activist groups encouraged a boycott following the withdrawal of the sponsorship on the TV series “Ellen”, after the subject of the series was deemed controversial.

Despite these ups and downs, JCPenney has reinvented itself again and again during the years finally achieving the results it enjoys now.