A few retail notes/links for today:
The Business Journal Of Milwaukee has a great article about new strategies by JC Penney, called Penney’s Targets Nemesis Kohl’s. First off, how cool is it that Kohl’s is a nemesis? It sounds so bad ass. However, the article does touch on a lot of things that I think Kohl’s as been doing very well over the past two years. JC Penny, unlike Sears, is still in a position to recapture it’s market share and turnaround a stale business. Retailwire.com [login required] has a good discussion on this article.
Also out of Milwaukee, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a very interesting article, entitled ‘Finding Its Niche‘, about the Lands’ End shop at Sears, which I talked about a few weeks ago. They talk about how Sears is trying to win back customers and attract new ones through the increased brand awareness of Lands End. Some of the comments in the article echo statements that I previously made, but the photos in the article are interesting because they show how nice the area looks. However, I am suprised that they would use a beautiful photo that shows three hunters walking down the aisle, as I’m sure that’s not the target demographic for this new undertaking. Also worth noting, that my local Sears is only one of about 30 stores in the nation to get this new shop concept.
To complete the Milwaukee trifecta, I’ll be in that town on April 26 to attend the Kohl’s shareholder meeting. It should be very fun.
And lastly, the Associated Press has a quick rundown of the comp store sales for Department Stores in the month of March and they have a more detailed rundown of comp store sales for the entire retail sector (minus Kohl’s, for some reason). For those not in the industry, the “comp number” is the percentage increase in sales in a store for this year compared to last year. So in this case, it is the change in the month of March vs. March of 2005. Good to see Kohl’s near the top of the list.