The lack of christmasy flair extends to JCPenney itself, which managed to be far less decorated than even Sears. Seriously, all they had were some cardboard trees by the entrance and a few cardboard signs hanging around the store -- rather pathetic, I must say.
I visited a JCPenney store this weekend. It was a mix of good and bad. On the bad side was that the escalators at my local JCPenney, the Willowbrook Mall one, are still out of order. They have been out of order since the beginning of the year. At this point, they may permanently be 'just stairs'. There were also very few shoppers in the store, fewer than I remember being at Sears even in 2019, the last full year for my local Sears. Granted, I suppose there is a big difference between 2025 and 2019 as far as B&M retail goes, but still. It's not like 2019 was the best of times. Also, I couldn't find the display for what I was looking for even though the website claimed they had it. Nobody who worked there knew where it would be either.
ReplyDeleteOn the good side, the men's department was well-stocked and orderly. The men's department is about as good as it gets at stores like that for those wanting office type clothes. I didn't intend on buying dress socks, but they had a good selection of Gold Toe socks and a good sale so I bought some. If I needed clothes to wear at the office, and I didn't want to pay Dillard's prices, JCPenney would likely be my first stop these days as opposed to Kohl's or Macy's. Granted, given the lack of customers, I don't know for how much longer they'll be around.
I feel like JCPenney these days is just kind of stagnating... they aren't actively failing like Sears was for so long, but they aren't thriving either. (Though Sears managed to keep the escalators working at this store all the way to the end!) I cut through this JCPenney pretty much every time I go to Southcenter, and while it certainly doesn't look all that great thanks to the concrete floors and cardboard signs, I've never noticed any major issues with lack of stock, and it seems like there's always a decent crowd here -- maybe not anything to compare with Macy's or Nordstrom, but definitely better than Sears, and people actually seem to be shopping instead of just cutting through like we tended to see at Sears.
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