Zequan Fang
“I certify that this is my own work and if this statement is untrue, I acknowledge that I will have committed an academic offense.”
MKTG6500 –Marketing MANAGEMENT
Professor: Dr. Rajesh Chandrashekaran
Date: February 14, 2012
Analysis of Current Events JCPenny has just launched its new marketing strategy on Feb 1, 2012, which include improving its brands, refreshing its new stores, and the most important part—the new pricing model. The new pricing model is so called “Fair and Square” pricing strategy. This new pricing strategy includes three parts. The first one is “everyday” regular pricing, which is about 40% off 2011’s retail price without discount or promotion. The second one is …show more content…
According to Martis-Olivo, a retail analyst for Thomson Reuters, JCPennt’s sale performance is poor compared to Macy’s in 2011. Although Macy’s offers less discount and promotion, it posted a much stronger same-store sales average. Consumers now think department stores usually offering items at high prices, then offering discounts or coupons, so use such discount or coupon promotion to attract sales is not as much efficient as before. Furthermore, internet sales are jump up significantly in recent years due to the lower price and more convenience. So JCPenny’s new marketing strategy is launched in time to tackle these challenges. The “everyday” pricing is about 40% off 2011’s retail price without discount or promotion, which will give the consumers better value products to increase the chances that consumers will visit more and purchase more because of the lower prices. The “month-long values” on specific items, which will also keep the customer mentality from waiting for additional price drops, and this will also attract consumers come to the store more frequently, instead of only come into the stores when promotion. Finally, the “best price” pricing on the first and third Fridays of each month will help the stores to clean up their piled up inventories to avoid additional carrying …show more content…
As we discussed above, the important role of the JCPenny new marketing strategy is the new pricing model, which give the lower everyday price and month-long values to the consumers. So their new pricing position is focusing on better price-value relationship. Also, they hold promotion on the first and third Fridays of each month, which is the new name for clearance, or the lowest price you'll ever see for a particular item. Secondly, brands are actually the products to department stores like JCPenny. The improvement of brands is refer to improve their products, as Wahlstrom described, J.C. Penney has put its focus on fewer, “more relevant” brands, and less on private brands that are “less efficient,” such as Arizona and Worthington. These will provide consumer with quality instead of quantity. The final P is referring place, as we mention at the beginning, JCPenny is refreshing its new stores, which may give consumers more convenient