JCPenney: Bankrupt & Out Of Time | Retail Archaeology 

JCPenney has never fully recovered when the former Apple store man ran the company and got rid of the coupons. You don't sell clothes & household items the way you sell electronics

Aw I didn't expect to hear the "After these messages, we'll be right back" jingle. What a great throwback! As a toddler I sang it all the time, and my mom even recorded me singing it for our old answering machine. 😭 Memories💜 Such a great video as always!! Keep 'em coming!! 😊

My mom just received her early retirement from "Penny's" after 25 years. They treated her alright. JC Penney lost sight of what brought them to the dance: serving rural communities. Thanks for the vid even though it's a bit depressing!

There is actually a JCPenney near me that got remodeled before the virus and it has a coffee bar and other odd and ends inside it.

Honestly the people in charge don't work in the store. People that never work the front lines should not be in charge of a business that is customer focused. Do you think any management has listened to normal employees who actually know the customer.

Ever since I was a kid I could never really tell the difference between Sears, JCPenney, and countless other Mall department stores. Ironically all of those stores look exactly the same as they did when I was a kid in the early 90's.

Looking a lot like how Sears and Kmart looked in their final days.

I like buying jeans and t-shirts from JC penny because their Arizona and St.John Bay stuff is really good and cheap compare to many other places in the mall

It's like everything we grown up around is sadly going away and its really depressing.

It's sad seeing the slow death of JC Penney. I worked at a tiny one for over a year. I miss as it was so small we were like a family. The store is still going as far as I know.

It's kind of scary that Amazon is thinking about putting fulfillment centers in shuttered Sears and Penney's stores.

Wow RIP to Ellen And JC Penney 2020 Is REAL

It makes me so sad to see stores with such a long standing history dying like this. I understand that this pandemic has brought a lot of abrupt change, but to see so many places struggling this hard and/or dying is honestly scary.

The main thing I get at Penney’s are my Liz Claiborne blouses for work. I hope Liz can find a place to land should Penney’s close. She used to be at Dillard’s and have her own outlet stores, but all that went away when she became a Penney’s exclusive.

I remember when Sears used to sell electronics. Like TV’s and gaming consoles back in the mid-late 2000s. 😄

SEARS and JCPENNEYS is like the Ottoman Empire; The Dying Man of Europe

As someone who grew up during the glory days of malls I find these dead mall videos very sad, Of course I say that as a person who has been inside a mall about five times in the last ten years and at least four of those was only because the store I get my glasses from is in a mall

I hope JCP survives! I don't shop at them too often anymore but def have a warm feeling for them! The one in the vid looks nice! Fully stocked and well kept.

The sign about social distancing was just an attempt at humor, you'd be hard pressed to find 2 people in the store to put in the elevator

I remember looking through the JC Penny Home catalog well into my teens. mid-2000's or so. For some reason, that holds a lot of nostalgia for me. Whenever I would go to the mall with my family growing up, we would ALWAYS park at the JCP entrance. EVERY TIME.

My home town in Wyoming is where the first JCP store (the “mother store”) is. Penney’s house is also a museum there. It’s indeed very sad 😭

Lol it's interesting to know you're 6'3. Also I'm a teacher and a lot of the U.S. isn't going back to school so the lack of need for back to school clothes and shoes I think has hurt a lot of these retail stores, i.e JC Penny. It's only a matter of time. Great video as usual! 👍🏾

The whole purpose of putting Sephora in JC Penny was to keep it alive a little while longer.

I worked for JCP, starting before things got bad and through it. The catalog going away was a move to embrace online sales. I remember when it happened, and some customers weren't happy, but it was a waste when most people who would have used the caralog went online instead. Ron Johnson WAS, no question, the reason JCP went downhill. Bad ideas that weren't tested or adjusted, bad marketing, removing items and brands that were staples and replacing them with things that JCP's core customer had no interest in, changing the quality of various items, and shrinking the selection of plus size women's clothing, etc. Online shopping might have done some damage, but Ron Johnson did the most, and he did it at the hardest time for a retailer to recover from it.

JC Penney stands for "James Cash Penney" the company's founder...interesting name for a retailer.

I actually love JC Penney. I am very petite and my partner is 3XLT and this is the only place we can often find decent looking clothes on a budget under one roof. Some stores might be ugly but ours in Ohio are well kept, even if they look very 90's, which I personally love. Thank You for updating the situation, hope you are well.

JcPenny has been slowly dying before the virus. The stores are outdated, ugly and non modern. As well as there has never been a reason to go there over other stores.

I just bought a new name brand mattress through JCP the sales person was great to work with and they price matched a lower price I saw. They thanked me for buying with them and not the competitor. Also JCP is the only store with a big and tall section because America is bigger than before but all the clothing retailers like to pretend everyone’s a twig still. I don’t want JCP to close.

In the 90s as a kid, I used to love buying Jnco & SouthPole brands

Back in the day, a department store used to be a local family owned and operated institution. With the death of these giant department store chains, who used to be just like the small dept. stores early in their lives, they take the legacy of these long gone local dept. stores with them.

Sears, JCP and Mervyn’s were all the same to me 😂 just like Macy’s, Robinson’s May and Bloomingdales were...oh the memories of being dragged to the mall by my mom, going from one department store to the next...🤣 now I miss it

Gawd that was depressing. I had to look away from the screen, as I did not want to lose a part of my childhood just yet lol

I love watching these videos bc I work at JCPenney and am working at a closing store in Florida. I’m gonna miss it because the team I work with is amazing but I’m glad I don’t have to be stressed about selling credit cards anymore.

That shoe department with the low ceiling was probably a "backstage" area used as maybe a stockroom. during remodelings, management would brag that "nonselling space would be converted to productive selling space", leaving less space for storage, maintenance, stocking.

NO, Penney's cannot be out of time. I will not accept losing Penney's.

Thanks for all of the wonderful videos you do :)

Hi Eric: what a great way to start Saturday morning with a notification of a new upload from RA. Thanks a lot for this, enjoyed it as always.

It's so sad because I have very fond memories of JCP over the years. I remember when I was a kid, my mom worked in the back of a JCPenney's store as a payroll person, we had a take your kid to work day, so my mom took me to her job and I got to see the back end of the JCPenney store. Penney's is also where we shopped for pretty much all my clothes as a kid. I remember going to take my photo in their photo center, and I remember going to the salon with my mom and just waiting in the waiting room. I know these might sound dumb, but Penney's played a part in my childhood, and the fact I can still remember this stuff is great. I don't think Penney's stores near me are going to close as they are always busy it seems, so that's good, but I just feel bad that the entire company is on thin ice.

RIP James Cash Penney. You were a great man... a retail visionary, ahead of his time.

Good thing I just quit. The stories I could tell. I worked in Appliances before they fused into Home Specialty.

They are the only remaining anchor in the mall in our area, so they are doing ok. They need to survive. We can't lose every store. People will be sorry if they let that happen. Online shopping is great, but if you need something right away, you need brick and mortar.

I used to work for JCP at one of their distribution warehouses. Take my word for this: it ain't no fun working for a dying company.

The 80s were a great time for malls in America. Especially, during the holiday season. The energy was so different because practically everyday was crowded.

Bruh wtf this is where I get my clothes for school. I have a strict dress code and this is the only store where I can actually find them

Yay for Siesta mall returning! And loved the late 80s/early 90s abc bumper. I grew up seeing it a lot watching the Sat. morning cartoons. 👌

JCPenney is such an odd liminal space, it's like the backroom of department stores. It kind of gives me a similar vibe to walking in a hotel hallway at night. Not sure if it's the old flourescent lights or the tiles or the strange set up of displays but it feels like its own parallel universe separate from the rest of the world

I work at a jcp, been there for almost 15 years so I’ve gone through all those changes you mentioned; the discontinuation of the catalog (long overdue) the Ron Johnson period (the beginning of the end) and now the impact of coronavirus. I really hope Simon picks up jcp cuz as you said, they have a vested interest in keeping the company going. I think the only thing holding it up right now is online ordering with store fulfillment. Also, those flickering lights seem to be an issue at all jcp stores; my store has multiple that are fairly epileptic and make it very difficult to work, let alone shop.

JC Penney...step into our store and let us welcome you to the 1950s 😄😄😄

JCPenney sold state of the art hifi equipment back in the day

JCPenny is the cheaper version of Macy's I don't like that the JCPenny site has cheaper sale prices for items and you have to remember to ask at the register to price match it. Sale prices should be the same in-store as they are on their own website.

The wait is over, now the weekend can officially start!

JCPenney is a great old store. They're really trying - unlike Sears and KMart. I hope they can make it.

If Simon does acquire JC Penney, they will probably close more locations to partially cover the cost of the acquisition. The ones that are would be at greatest risk of closure are non Simon locations that are near ones at Simon owned malls.

I literally live for these videos

I remember going into JCP at Christown mall as a kid. They had a little snack area in the middle of the store and I would always get icee's.

all these anchor stores have shot themselves in the foot selling the same thing at different prices. or in the case of macys flatout lying about the prices.

When I was a kid (long before there were any malls), my mom would take me to Penny's at the beginning of each school year. It was an old one on the Main Street of Brattleboro VT. There were no cash registers on the floor. Instead, you would take your merchandise to one of several "stations" where an employee would take your money, put it into a little metal container, and then place it on a fast moving cable system that whisked it upstairs where the offices were. In a little bit it would come back to that station with your change and a hand written receipt. I loved watching those little chrome boxes flying around the room near the ceiling with a lot of clicking sounds as they went. The quick right angle turns were especially fun to watch. They traveled fast!

Kohl’s took a lot of their customers. I loved shopping at penny’s but now it’s like sears was, no cashiers.

Let's just hope they JCPenny get's back on their feat.

I really hope this location does not close. If it does, we will lose an all brown elevator. The only ones left would be at Fashion Square Mall. Then knowing Phoenix, they could demolish this location for a Walmart.

I currently work for a JCPenney. The mall where it’s at is basically a ghost mall. They are telling us this year, the store has not made its sales goal since the start of the year. 😓 Of course, I’m looking for other jobs now, but I’m also taking pictures and documenting the insides of the store before it eventually shuts down one day. Things are not looking good for our store. 😔

I moved and it kills me inside to know that I can't explore deadmalls in Arizona now 😭

I stopped going to Penny's 15 years ago. Saturday (Southern California) and only one Person working the Shoe Dept., pulling shoes from backroom and working register, with 5 People waiting. They could have easily stocked them on the floor under each display Errrrrr!!

I can tell you this, I can't imagine coming into work at these places, same with Sears and kmart that are still barely alive has to be very depressing to work there, knowing any day you walk in and your boss tells you that it's were done

I hate to see JC Penney's go away. I do like the stores.

I'm getting Bed Bath & Beyond coupons to this day. Honestly, I hate that it might take malls going away for them to possibly come back one day. I love online convenience, but the experience of the mall can't be replicated elsewhere. It's a shame the retail execs refuse to adapt or improve, and thus go bankrupt.

Don’t forget that Marvin Ellison, former CEO (currently Lowe’s CEO) took it down the dumpster.

It was a great place to work in the 1980s and always, always busy. Retail work and mall culture were so awesome then. Penney's seems to have gone down the same dumbing down path that so many of our once great stores did. Most of the shopping I've done there in recent times has been on line and is usually something like bedding or rugs. In my later personal visits the staffing was very thin but still friendly and helpful. We had more management employees on at any given time when I worked there however than I think they had in the whole store counting everyone. I will say those who think stores like this are a throwback, I can assure you stores were nothing like you see now 30 or 40 years ago. Many people now I don't think really get how traditional shopping is supposed to work, and that's part of why the mall and department store model has struggled. I'm not sure what I see for their future and it will be interesting to see what happens. Fun fact: In addition to being the last to discontinue a catalog, Penney's was also the last to introduce it, not until 1964, unlike Sears and Wards which did so in the 19th century.

I have to say that, even though the stores don’t look great, I still buy my clothes at JCPenney. They have fair prices on good clothes. I don’t like that the stores are closing, especially my local one, but I will still buy from them online until the wheels fall off

I can't help but feel sad for these places. More than a thousand people used to come to places like this... Now it's just a piece of history.

I was actually in my small local mall's JCP today to buy my son a pair of shoes. They had exactly 1 register open for the entire store with 10 - 15 customers standing around. I told a young clerk standing in juniors straightening that this was ridiculous, put the shoes back and left. I have always been a loyal customer but if this is their idea of cutting costs then I won't be back.

The Penny's here in my hometown has been here since the 1940s, and they are on the list of closures. There is nowhere else to shop for clothing here, especially for men. All that will be left is Walmart and about 13 Dollar Generals, and unless it is underwear I do not buy clothes or towels from them. I like Penny's allot, I like to shop their clearance home goods, a nice comforter set you can get for 25 or 30 dollars, plus use a coupon to get more of a discount. I also only buy towels from Penny's, Liz Claiborne loop threaded bath sheets, so soft and thick, lasts long time and with sales plus coupon can get them at times 10 bucks a pop. I will miss Penny's very much.

Ron Johnson almost singlehandedly killed JCPenney...but the downslide actually began in 1998, when JCPenney sold its credit card business! That's how the stores made their money, a store manager told me. Not from clothes sales but those credit cards.

What was amazing when you look to Sears, JCPenny, and KMart was how BADLY each was managed. None of them (not even the discount KMart) knew how to compete against Walmart and everyday low prices. They saw what Walmart was doing and they could not adapt or change. And then when Amazon starting piling on it was too late to change. I remember working in a Sears Store in the 80's as I went to college, and the roll-out of every day low prices in Sears. They still had the catalog sales then. And what amazed me was how poor their tech was. I built a simple program on a computer they had in the office to aid the Auto area track parts in the store, and it worked so well we expanded it to the whole store. We put in the inventory coming in, tossed in sales reports for going out, and it showed the profit / loss. To me by then it was SIMPLE. Yet Sears, depsite their massive tower in Chicago and three whole floors dedicated to computers, could not produce for the store what I was producing with a simple IBM desktop using some VB coding and the version of MS Excel at that time. I've read stories about SEARS and the others and many times the same thread is in the stories. Long time individuals who rose to positions of power and who were used to moving slowly and surely, unable to adapt to the faster and faster changes required in the modern world. And then they were often more interesting in their own positions as opposed to the whole company so cooperation between areas was .. challenging .. at best. Add in bad decisions by CEO's who didn't understand how or why the world was changing and *POOF* gone.

The mall I grew up with had three anchors: Sears, Elder-Beerman, and JCPenney. Sears closed back in 2016, Elder-Beerman shuttered last year, and now JCPenney is meeting its end.

I currently work at JC Penney in Tacoma, WA and I love it! I look forward to going to work mainly for the customers and fantastic staff! No day is ever the same but the only down side are the outdated checkout areas, bathrooms and slow elevators. I hope Penney's remains open because I enjoying being with this company.

I think malls and these department stores can make it. But each store has to decide on a new business model. For instance JCPenney they need to figure out what kind of demographic they're going after and stick with it. They need to do studies on what people like what brands people are buying and that's what they need to carry. Also JCPenney's needs to invest millions and millions of dollars in revamping their stores to make them look more up to the date with the times. That also goes for Sears and older department stores. But this is what I say about Sears. I think they should only get into the appliance , housewares, electronics, and tools and nothing else. They should get out of the clothing business and shoe business and concentrate on those areas that I have mentioned. JCPenney and Sears needs to sell half of their stores and take the millions of dollars and revamp all the existing stores. This advice should go to all the stores in all the malls. Also the mall owners in this country need to clean up their malls and revamp them also. Remodel the inside and outside. Get rid of anything that resembles the past. Some of these malls that were built in the 50s 60s and 70s they need an upgrade. personally I think we need stores because we cannot order everything online. I need to try on pants because men's pants nowadays come in so many different sizes and styles that they need to be tried on. When it comes to clothes some things we need to go in and try on. Personally I'm getting sick and tired of seeing Amazon trucks on the road 7 days a week. I live in an HOA and I see those damn! Trucks in this complex 7 days a week. people are so freaking lazy to get out and shop nowadays. I don't know why everybody thinks Amazon is such a great place the prices are not always that good and I could always find prices somewhere else cheaper than Amazon. People if you don't get out and start shopping you're going to have to buy everything online and then you're going to be annoyed at some point in your life. You got to support small businesses. Even if it's just a dollar or two or $20 who cares. You're paying for the convenience . Is everybody going to become introverts to the point where they don't want to socialize and be out in public with people. Get off your asses! And start shopping and support businesses. Screw Amazon!

Wow, I think I might have saw 3 other customers and no employees at that store...that's a sign right there that they'll be closing up soon. Btw, another great video...thanks

So Ellen was involved was involved with JC Penney's downfall, that commercial was gods awful, it fully encapsulated her brand of "humor".

Big thumbs up for the return of Siesta Mall!

It's so unfortunate! I remember as a kid my mom and I meeting up with my grandmother at JCPenney for a shopping trip and lunch at Olive Garden. I remember how excited I was also if my mom let me pick out some thing as well😂😊 good times!

Most of JCPenney stores are in malls which is a big disadvantage as many malls are struggling. It looks dark in parts of this store. The JCPenney at Potomac Mills Malll was an outlet store, then closed for 1 year and reopened a newly remodeled store. JCPenney had shut down all its outlet stores. This is a MIlls mall owned by the Simon Group just like your Arizona Mills Mall

You mentioned they just recently got rid of the master catalog. They have employees who have been working here for 50+ years. In fact younger employees recently won a lawsuit stemming back to these older employees forcing younger employees to stay after and work for free during closing time. The security department was out of control in fact the security department where I worked had a shrine dedicated to them with a message stating anyone who defaces the shrine will be prosecuted. The issue at a lot of these retail stores is they keep older employees who don’t deserve the job and don’t know current fashions and it’s a problem. Also lazy older employees who refuse to help a customer

im amazed the paradise valley mall location is still opened. when i went there in 2014 and 2017 it was dead both times. there was also a sears at that mall that was dead as well, i hope it shut down. i cant imagine the money JCpenney has wasted paying all those employees just to stand around. especially all that kitchen stuff and bathroom stuff - no one ever goes in those departments it baffles me why they are still set up to sell stuff like that, they shouldve transitioned into selling video games or electronics or something to stay competitive.

JCPenneys not only used to sell appliances, but power tools as well. Had a JCPenney branded drill press for the longest time.

There's a stand alone jc penny in my town that's modern and it's always super busy. They should have focused on building modern stand alone stores and get out of those dead malls.

There is one in Plano, TX that survived a mall demolition. One of their crown jewels in terms of sales and location, but at this rate there's now way it will survive unless Amazon (or whoever) buys them out.

I worked at JC Penney’s in Philadelphia PA in the 80’s and have fond memories of those days 🙂💕 Working there to pay my way threw college 🙂 I reside in Los Angeles now and heard the once booming Penny’s store I worked for has closed down for good. So very sad.

That opening theme though, made me a kid again.

Re: intro. Sure that intro will eventually piss off someone, but to me it really fit what your channel's vibe. This matters to me. I think later it will also matter to people who want to know what was up in the 1990s - 2010s.

4:53 now THIS is just hilarious to look at-- absolutely love it when my local mall anchor has fixtures resembling YA novel dystopian propaganda

When I was a kid I enjoyed looking at the Christmas catalogs from JC Penny and Sears. They are just a memory in my town...gone forever. Liked and subscribed.

In my corner of Eastern PA, the only JC Penney went away some time ago. It was in the Fairgrounds Square Mall. The empty part of that mall is now being torn down. Not that it matters, but the former Penney was the first part to go.

The jcpenny in my area still does well

Ahhh...memories of mall shopping circa 80s, 90s, 00s 🥺

Damn! I shop at this exact JCPenney pretty frequently. It's sad to see them struggling. If anything, I hope there are some big and tall sales.

the intro took me straight back to 1991 being at the arcade wasting quarters on Fatal Fury

oh dang that commercial bumper shot me down nostalgia lane!

So many things from my childhood gone. Phone buths (sp),Big Boy restaurant, big crazy hair, and looking for hours at the Penny’s Christmas Catalog!

Department stores don't even look "modern" any more. It's like looking at dinosaurs on their way out.