Was he the guy who promised to make their pricing easier to understand with clearly labelled discounts without coupons? He is. Then he probably did spend time i

Was he the guy who promised to make their pricing easier to understand with clearly labelled discounts without coupons? He is. Then he probably did spend time in a store because confusion over sales and extra time at checkout were common at JC Penney. His plan would have made the shopping experience less complicated. The problem is it didn't translate into improved performance. The opposite actually. Because what customers say and what customers do aren't always the same thing. They may complain that there are too many coupons. But when given the choice they preferred using coupons. So he got sacked and JC Penney went back to the old pricing scheme. By becoming even more risk-averse no one after him even tried to pull the company out of its death spiral. In hindsight the plan would never have succeeded because the customers who would have appreciated the simpler pricing had already left. The JCP shoppers at that time were coupon hunters who resented the changes. He ignored the existing customers while chasing ex-customers who didn't want to return.