J.C. Penney Co Inc said on Wednesday it will close 33 stores and cut 2,000 jobs as part of the struggling retailer’s efforts to return to profit.
The 33 stores set for closure include 2 in Illinois and one in Greater Chicago. The J.C. Penney in Bloomingdale at Stratford Square Mall and the location in Forsyth, at Hickory Point Mall, are on the list.
Penney, which operates about 1,100 mid-market department stores in the United States, is trying to stanch enormous losses and win back shoppers after suffering a 25 percent drop in sales in fiscal 2012 during a failed attempt to go upmarket.
SSMark1 says
I didn’t care for Penny’s Square Deal Fixed Pricing policy. I missed the coupons & sales. Stratford is the closest location to me and will be missed. Woodfield is a nice sized store, but I hate the higher taxes. Stratford has artificially high taxes since a 1% mall tax is tacked on for Bloomingdale, but that was still cheaper than the Schaumburg/Cook county tax.
On the other side, Sears is aggressively trying to get people back into it’s stores with up to SCR/SYWR 10x points, couponing, & discounts, & awesome deals if you use the Sears card in combination with any deal & the timing comes altogether. And with the results reported last Friday (Sears stock dropped 13+% that day), you know they will ramp up the deals even more… I just hope they don’t close too many locations. This will devastate the mall that had both Pennys & Sears as anchor stores.
Outlander says
I’m so sorry about Stratford too. It’s close to me and I used to work there. A LOT of stuff in my house is from there.
I hope the mall doesn’t become a ghost town like Charlestowne.