J.C. Penney

In the wake of Gay Pride Month, a recent Wall Street Journal article took a look at how big department store chains like J.C. Penney, Target and Macy's are courting gay customers. According to the article, the brands — most of which have traditionally ignored gay culture in their advertising and marketing materials — are making efforts to cozy up to the demographic, as gay couples are increasingly settling down in suburbia.

When J.C. Penney announced its radical no-sale "Fair and Square" pricing strategy at the beginning of the year, comp-store numbers started tumbling soon thereafter. The retailer announced earlier last month that it would backtrack on the plan a bit, having concluded (correctly) that consumers like the word "sale." Then its top marketer abruptly resigned. There's speculation that CEO Ron Johnson will have to cave and return to incessant couponing and sale events. I hope not.

A new survey finds that consumers rate Target, Safeway, Subway, Best Buy, J.C. Penney, Walgreens, Bank of America and Verizon Wireless as being the best retail and restaurant brands when it comes to using social media to communicate with customers.

There's a question hanging over newly IPO'd Facebook that's generating a lot of discussion: Is social commerce — i.e., having an online store within Facebook or another social site — working? This comes after a few big brands, including Gap, GameStop and J.C. Penney, closed their failed Facebook stores earlier this year.General Motors pulling its advertising from Facebook didn't boost confidence that the social networking site is effective at generating income for businesses other than itself.

After only eight months, Michael Francis, one of the key architects of J.C. Penney's high profile turnaround efforts, is leaving the company, effective immediately. In October, the former Target exec became J.C. Penney's president, responsible for merchandising, marketing, planning and allocation, and product development and sourcing. J.C. Penney announced the parting in a three-sentence statement, noting CEO Ron Johnson will assume direct responsibility and oversight of the company's marketing and merchandising functions. Johnson thanked Francis for his "hard work" and wished him well in his "future endeavors."

J.C. Penney has asked a New York federal court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the visual merchandising firm Hudson + Broad over the Plex

Despite all the buzz around social media over the past several years, the concept of "real" social commerce — when consumers can actually buy merchandise directly from whichever social network they're visiting and wherever they happen to be — has eluded the industry.

With J.C. Penney’s new pricing structure echoing that of Wal-Mart’s EDLP model, the most recent Retail Ratings Reports from BIGinsight indicates both retailers could face challenges when it comes to the women’s clothing category. For years Wal-Mart has led Kohl’s in the category, however, in November of 2011 Kohl’s surpassed the discounter and the two have been tangling for the top position ever since.

You'll be hard-pressed to find an uglier quarterly report out of the retail sector than what J.C. Penney (JCP) delivered on Tuesday night. Investors figured that new CEO Ron Johnson's "Fair and Square" pricing strategy wouldn't be a hit right away, but no one assumed that the recently remodeled department store chain would be this earnings season's biggest disaster.

J.C. Penney lost $163 million in the first quarter. Sales skidded 20 percent; traffic slowed 10 percent; conversion and average customer spending both fell 5 percent. Grim results indeed. But don't expect CEO Ron Johnson, President Michael Francis and the rest of the crew to throw in the towel on their retail revolution plan just yet.