Last November, when RetailWire reported that J.C. Penney would no longer publish its twice-yearly 1,000-page "Big Book" catalog, most of the comments on this site seemed to agree with the move.
At the time, Mike Boylson, chief marketing officer at Penney, said in a statement, "Big book catalogs have become less relevant as customers have embraced shopping online, where they have ready access to our entire assortment at any time on jcp.com, one of the nation's largest general merchandise sites on the internet. At the same time, customers greatly appreciate the smaller, more personalized catalogs we have introduced as well as digital and mobile applications that make it easier, more convenient and fun to shop with us."
Less than a year later, Penney has announced it will stop publishing "the smaller, more personalized catalogs" next year. Instead, the company plans to mail "look books," which contain fewer products, to point consumers to the company's website for product information and current pricing.
This latest decision takes place even though the chain has admitted it had not fully factored in the number of people who look at a catalog and then order online when it made the decision to kill its big book. Penney CEO Myron "Mike" Ullman told attendees of the Goldman Sachs Global Retailing Conference that sales were hurt more than expected when it discontinued the catalog, according to a Dallas Morning News report.
"We're not getting out of the print business. ... We're transitioning from the catalog, which is essentially a static vehicle," Mr. Ullman said.
Darcie Brossart, a spokesperson for J.C. Penney, told The Dallas Morning News that cutting the catalogs not only saves the company money on printing and related costs, but that it enabled it to reduce inventory when buying functions were consolidated across its off- and online channels.
The company has set a goal of increasing online sales by $5 billion over the next three years. Sales via jcp.com have been around $1.5 billion a year over the past three years. The home products category, which represents about half the company's online sales, have been particularly hard hit during that period.
Discussion Questions: What do you think of J.C. Penney's continuing move away from print to online and mobile? Is there any concern that it will lose sales again as it transitions from targeted catalogs to "look books" as a direct marketing tool?