J. C. Penney Company, Inc. today ousted its JCPenney brand president, Michael Francis, who oversaw the retailer's merchandising and marketing operations, with a terse statement that "We thank Michael for his hard work at jcpenney and wish him the best in his future endeavors."

Francis, who was hired last October "at great expense" (as the New York Times retail reporter tweeted, in light of his whopping $12 million signing bonus) from Target is seen as taking the fall for his boss, company CEO Ron Johnson, the former Apple top retailer who oversaw JCP's new brand strategy in January. Now, of course, the heat is on Johnson to clean up a mess that was arguably of his own making.

For an executive whose goal is to "simplify" matters internally and externally, it was Johnson who championed the idea of killing coupons and sales in favor of "fair and square pricing" (a reference to its logo), so-called "monthlong value" and "everyday low" pricing and twice-monthly clearance events on every first and third Friday (aka "payday" in America). The brand recently scrapped that strategy and is re-embracing the dreaded s-word — "sale."Continue reading...

JCPenney has a newfound love for "sale." Ron Johnson, the CEO of JCPenney, this week continued his efforts to claw back the troubled retailer's new business model this week by telling an investment meeting that the company now will be moving away from the implausible term "month-long value" that was introduced in January as part of its new pricing strategy in favor of re-embracing a word that had become verboten at Penney HQ of late: "sale."

"No one really understood [month-long value]," he told the Piper Jaffray Consumer Conference in New York on Tuesday about why the retailer is re-embracing the S-word after making a big splash about dropping it back in January. "What we intend to do is a sale. We run 12 a year."

Yes, Johnson is busy backpedaling from one of the ribs of Penney's new business model — to eschew sales and other "confusing" consumer promotions in favor of an everyday-low price strategy — following dismal first quarter results that saw coupon-clipping moms stay away in droves.Continue reading...

At some point, JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson is going to run into massive credibility problems with shoppers, investors and employees. He may already be there.

As part of its new "fair and square" pricing strategy that was introduced as part of its brand refresh in January, the retailer announced new promotions that would give lower prices on specific days of the month and also that some products would have better pricing for month-long periods. Coupons, in a risky move, would be eliminated — a move, it turns out, that didn't sit well with "couponing moms".

But one bad quarter later, in addition to lowering prices every first and third Friday of the month (aka "payday"), Penney’s has backpedaled on its non-promotional stance by adding five additional "Best Price Fridays" throughout the year that will also feature lower prices, such as the one before Memorial Day weekend.

While the move is designed to woo back customers after the brand's dismal first quarter, at least one analyst is afraid that the addition of the new days will confuse consumers even more.Continue reading...

Everybody loves a deal, particularly in such tough economic times. Smartphone owners of the world have given themselves another channel toward savings as mobile deals are starting to pop up — and new research shows that consumers tend to follow those deals more when they come during a shopping expedition than they follow brand loyalty.

Not shockingly, the survey (from AisleBuyer) of more than 1,000 shoppers shows that the group that is most ready to throw brand loyalty to the side are between the ages of 25 and 34, the site notes. A whopping 82 percent of them would do it in a heartbeat if they get a good offer for a competing brand on their mobile device.Continue reading...

Here's an unexpected entrant in the daily deals fray: BP, which has launched a location-based daily deals service to reinvent the brand and dip a toe in the muddied waters of consumer engagement one year after the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

The offers, available only to consumers in the UK, are being updated on BP’s corporate website .The tagline for Today’s Offers: ‘Keeping BP’s great offers at your fingertips.’ What a difference a year makes as sales and deals strive to trump a company’s performance track record once again.Continue reading...