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Man, this is kind of a poor article, down to the insinuation that Ron Johnson was the dude who decided to include in-store WiFi. (I say this because the Sears a

by jmduke 14y ago

Man, this is kind of a poor article, down to the insinuation that Ron Johnson was the dude who decided to include in-store WiFi. (I say this because the Sears and Nordstrom in my local mall both have free WiFi, and whether its a good thing or a bad thing it certainly isn't causing JCP to hemorrhage money.) I haven't heard much about Ron's attempts to actually change the retail and storefront look or offerings compared to his attempts to change consumers, which I think is much loftier. The shop that the author describes sounds identical to a JCP store from five years ago -- and sounds identical to all of its competitors today. I think a much more cogent point (that the author was flirting with, assuredly) is that consumers don't go about buying clothes the same way they go about buying technology. JCP's strategy is to appeal to the rational consumer -- the consumer who sits down and makes a pro-con list for every prospective purchase, the consumer who divorces themselves from such petty things like cheap heuristics and the innate pull of a "THIS WEEKEND ONLY!" sale. Those consumers might employ such strategies for a $1500 laptop (or a $500 phone), but probably not for a pair of $50 khakis.

ebbv 14y ago
Installing WiFi may not cause JC Penney to "hemorrhage" money but with 1,107 US stores if you assume a best case cost of say, $500 (and I think that's really optimistic) per store to make WiFi available to the public that's still $500k down the tubes for next to no benefit. I'm sure the decision was based on this idea that they want people to shop on JCP.com while in the store, and if they can't get a cell signal, obviously they need to have WiFi. But still, the whole thing strikes me as poorly conceived. If I'm in the store, how about making my experience shopping at the store as good as possible and not tell me to pull out my phone to make it work?
- jmduke 14y ago
  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying WiFi was a brilliant move or anything: I'm saying that it's not JCP-exclusive, it's not particularly important, and there's nothing pointing to the conclusion that it was Ron's idea or decision. (My money's on the bet that it was in place before he took over.) > If I'm in the store, how about making my experience shopping at the store as good as possible and not tell me to pull out my phone to make it work? 100% agreed.
  - schraeds 14y ago
    32% year of years sales drop. One of the only differences the reporter could tell about the shopping experience offered free wifi that was slower than his cell service. An example of seemingly arbitrary and, in the eyes of shoppers, non helpful changes Johnson oversaw. What exactly was your critique?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - phpnode 14y ago
    schraeds your account has been dead for 11 months :(
- dfxm12 14y ago
  It's very possible that JCP want to have their stores Internet enabled for other reasons, and thus the ability to offer Internet to customers is just a side benefit of that at (possibly) no additional cost. > If I'm in the store, how about making my experience shopping at the store as good as possible and not tell me to pull out my phone to make it work? Not everyone in the store is there to shop. It could be a competitive advantage to have these non-shoppers urge the shoppers they go with to go to JCP instead of some other place. Also, it is possible that giving Internet access to shoppers is easier/cheaper than making the experience in the stores as good as possible. If I want to comparison shop, for example, I wouldn't trust information given to me by the store I'm in, I would pull out my phone.
  - fennecfoxen 14y ago
    The premise is that the stores already have wi-fi for store operations, e.g. those inventory control computers with built-in bar scanners, price-check kiosks, and maybe even something like Nordstrom Rack's "you can check out anywhere in the store by going to our team in green" mobile checkout. Then you slap guest wifi on top of this on a separate SSID, and throttle its bandwidth use to something appropriate, it's dirt cheap, and will attract people to the aforementioned coffee-shop-style lounges. THEN if you want to get FANCY you use one of the new-fangled wifi analytics tools like Ekahau or Nearbuy to track frequency of repeat visitors and generate heatmaps and whatnot: * http://www.nearbuysystems.com/products/in-store-analytics.html http://www.nearbuysystems.com/products/in-store-analytics.ht... * http://www.ekahau.com/solutions/retail.html http://www.ekahau.com/solutions/retail.html

by jmduke 14y ago

ebbv 14y ago

Installing WiFi may not cause JC Penney to "hemorrhage" money but with 1,107 US stores if you assume a best case cost of say, $500 (and I think that's really optimistic) per store to make WiFi available to the public that's still $500k down the tubes for next to no benefit. I'm sure the decision was based on this idea that they want people to shop on JCP.com while in the store, and if they can't get a cell signal, obviously they need to have WiFi. But still, the whole thing strikes me as poorly conceived. If I'm in the store, how about making my experience shopping at the store as good as possible and not tell me to pull out my phone to make it work?

jmduke 14y ago
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying WiFi was a brilliant move or anything: I'm saying that it's not JCP-exclusive, it's not particularly important, and there's nothing pointing to the conclusion that it was Ron's idea or decision. (My money's on the bet that it was in place before he took over.) > If I'm in the store, how about making my experience shopping at the store as good as possible and not tell me to pull out my phone to make it work? 100% agreed.
- schraeds 14y ago
  32% year of years sales drop. One of the only differences the reporter could tell about the shopping experience offered free wifi that was slower than his cell service. An example of seemingly arbitrary and, in the eyes of shoppers, non helpful changes Johnson oversaw. What exactly was your critique?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- phpnode 14y ago
  schraeds your account has been dead for 11 months :(
dfxm12 14y ago
It's very possible that JCP want to have their stores Internet enabled for other reasons, and thus the ability to offer Internet to customers is just a side benefit of that at (possibly) no additional cost. > If I'm in the store, how about making my experience shopping at the store as good as possible and not tell me to pull out my phone to make it work? Not everyone in the store is there to shop. It could be a competitive advantage to have these non-shoppers urge the shoppers they go with to go to JCP instead of some other place. Also, it is possible that giving Internet access to shoppers is easier/cheaper than making the experience in the stores as good as possible. If I want to comparison shop, for example, I wouldn't trust information given to me by the store I'm in, I would pull out my phone.
- fennecfoxen 14y ago
  The premise is that the stores already have wi-fi for store operations, e.g. those inventory control computers with built-in bar scanners, price-check kiosks, and maybe even something like Nordstrom Rack's "you can check out anywhere in the store by going to our team in green" mobile checkout. Then you slap guest wifi on top of this on a separate SSID, and throttle its bandwidth use to something appropriate, it's dirt cheap, and will attract people to the aforementioned coffee-shop-style lounges. THEN if you want to get FANCY you use one of the new-fangled wifi analytics tools like Ekahau or Nearbuy to track frequency of repeat visitors and generate heatmaps and whatnot: * http://www.nearbuysystems.com/products/in-store-analytics.html http://www.nearbuysystems.com/products/in-store-analytics.ht... * http://www.ekahau.com/solutions/retail.html http://www.ekahau.com/solutions/retail.html