Boston, MA 10/21/2013 (wallstreetpr) – J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP) has finally decided to keep step with its competitors by opening its stores on Thanksgiving night instead of Friday morning for the shopping rush. The trend has become increasing popular in recent years despite protestation by shoppers and some workers at retail stores and JC Penney is among the last few companies who are just embracing the concept.
Most of the stores 1,100 outlets will open at 8 pm on Thanksgiving and remain open until 9 pm on Friday and Tony Bartlett, JC Penney executive vice president of stores, said that they realized that opportunities were missed by opening on Friday last year. This year will also signal the return of a JC Penney tradition of giving away holiday snow globes on the day after Thanksgiving, a practice that was abandoned last year.
The approach to the Thanksgiving shopping period this year is just one of many strategies being used to help bring the store back on its feet after the departure of former CEO Ron Johnson whose tenure resulted in billions of dollars of losses and plummeting sales. Since Mike Ullman was brought back into the position, he has gone about restoring the image of the company and trying to rebuild its customer base, a lot of whom left when Johnson revamped the store concept in the hope of attracting a younger, richer clientele.
Retail companies across the country have started to ring in the Christmas shopping season sooner and sooner each year until it is now the norm for stores to be opened on Thanksgiving Day. Many people think it violates the tradition and meaning of the holiday but the crowds that have started to turn out to begin early shopping seem to indicate that this opinion is the overwhelming minority. Macys has also joined JC Penney by announcing that they will open on Thanksgiving Thursday as well.
