JCPenney’s CEO Marc Rosen on Reviving an American Icon
JCPenney’s CEO Marc Rosen shares his vision for reviving the iconic American retailer by doubling down on its core customer. The Retail Dispatch (TRD) highlights key takeaways.
I have spent a lot of time with JCPenney in the past. They were a client of mine for quite a long time, including during the heady days of Ron Johnson. I have always been rooting for them.
There is something about being in the middle of retail nowadays. It’s not the best place to be. Think JCPenney, Macy’s, Dillard’s, and many other retailers. It’s doable, just not easy. Even Neiman Marcus, arguably, falls into this middling category.
It’s far easier now to appeal to the value set, à la Walmart, or the high-end crowd, like Hermès or Loro Piana. Think of it as the bifurcation of retail.
Having seen a recent article in *Fortune* with Marc Rosen, I wanted to understand where JCPenney is at and where they are headed, and highlight some salient points for our TRD readers.
For those who aren’t familiar with him, a bit of background on Marc.
Marc took the helm at JCPenney in 2021. He has 25 years of retail and e-commerce experience, including notably at Levi Strauss, where he previously served as EVP and President of Levi Strauss Americas. He also spent time at Walmart. He has a strong base in consumer brands, digital and e-commerce.
Salient Point #1
Rosen believes that doubling down on who they are and who they serve is the key to where and how they go and grow from here.
Marc discusses how he did exhaustive research before taking the job to understand brand and customer sentiment. Many people he connected with had a story to tell — customers who had bought their first communion dress there, and other such stories, but invariably hadn’t been there lately.
Salient Point #2
Marc sees his job as helping to bring the brand back to relevance. Assortment and shopping experience are big areas that comprise this push, he feels.
Marc related that JCPenney was one of the first to do catalogs and how that set the stage for e-commerce (catalogs represented the “scaffold” for a future commerce push). Yet, they had not gotten e-commerce right in the past, so he sees his job as rectifying that.
Salient Point #3
Rosen sees the JCPenney customer as the “teachers” and “construction workers” of this country. He considers folks like this to be his core and base, asserting that they need a place to find “great fashion.” He is building out JCPenney to appeal to these populations.
**Konposit thoughts:** Do construction workers really want or need “great fashion”?
Salient Point #4
Marc distinguishes JCPenney from Walmart (and that ilk) in that his customer is seeking great fashion and feels that they provide a better experience.
He gives the example of “buying that dress alongside your eggs” at Walmart versus the experience you might have at JCPenney — there is a salon in-house, an in-house photo studio, and beauty services. He asserts their end-to-end experience is better, if you’re seeking to treat yourself, and find the fashion you need (or want).
Salient Point #5
Marc came with a strong e-commerce background. The interviewer asked him about what learnings he had from digital at properties like Levi Strauss and how that could be applied at JCPenney. Key areas Marc feels are essential include driving a great site experience, great search, and good content management.
He emphasizes getting the foundation right, which he asserts is fulfillment. He mentions creating excitement to drive traffic to both the store and the web and notes special collaborations. Marc also discusses special occasions (prom, for example) quite a bit, and aims to make JCPenney the destination for fashion for such events.
Salient Point #6
When asked what he’s been most proud of, now that he’s been at JCP for about three years, he discusses culture, and identifying what that looks like for them, specifically targeting populations that include the working class, and providing these core groups with real, substantive value.
Salient Point #7
JCPenney is self-funding a capital reinvestment initiative of $1 billion. This program started over a year ago. The first big tranche of this is focused on the shopping experience, so by the end of this year, they will have remodeled one-third of their store fleet. E-commerce and fulfillment will be part of this first phase. The second tranche will focus on the right assortments in the right places, with AI playing a role in this phase. The third tranche will be about relevancy, and reigniting the JCPenney brand.
**Konposit note:** Ron Johnson’s transformation model was also based on self-funding.
Salient Point #8
The core customer is discussed in more detail and includes, as noted above, people in professions such as medical workers, schoolteachers, and construction workers. JCP sees their core customer as heavily comprising Hispanic and African American populations, thus, they need to appeal to a diverse set of needs and tastes.
As relates to optimizing their assortment, an example noted was ensuring they have the sizes needed for particular locations, based on the identified customer base; different sizing is needed for their Hispanic clientele, Marc pointed out.
Salient Point #9
The JCPenney value proposition is to “make it count.” The components of this include accessible fashion, a rewarding shopping experience, and giving back to the community. The fourth pillar is the original JCPenney Golden Rule: treating others as one would want to be treated.
Salient Point #10
Marc is planning big things for JCPenney this holiday season, and will be aiming to provide deep value to its core set of customers.
More to come — in the next volume of Konposit’s The Retail Dispatch, I’ll walk through a JCPenney store and report back based on what Marc has said he’s doing.
Until next time… Happy Retailing!…
Fortune Editors. “JCPenney’s CEO on what it takes to bring an iconic American brand ‘back to relevance’. Fortune Magazine, September 11, 2024.
Full article: https://fortune.com/2024/09/11/jcpenney-ceo-marc-rosen-interview/
Article on Substack: https://tracydecicco.substack.com/p/jcpenneys-ceo-marc-rosen-on-reviving
#retail #retailtech #jcpenney #marcrosen #TRD #konposit #retailtransformation
