The Continued growth of E-Commerce and how it has affected J.C. Penney.

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Updated 7 years ago

J.C. Penney is such a well known and well established American retailer that you would think it was untouchable when it comes to market changes that affect smaller companies. The company recently announced that it would be closing 138 stores and laying off 5,000 employees. It will still keep 876 stores open, but the fact that they had to close any stores at all is attributed to the continued growth of E-Commerce as the chosen method of buying products by consumers with Internet access.

James Cash Penney was the founder of this iconic American company, and he opened his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming in 1902. In 1909 Mr. Penney moved his business to Salt Lake City, Utah to be closer to the railroads ,the banks and the increased foot traffic he would receive from being in a large urban environment. Here at WA we still want more traffic visiting our websites, so in that respect, some things never change.

J.C. Penney actually experimented with an early form of E-Commerce called Viewtron, which was a videotex service available in 1983. If anyone reading this has personal knowledge of this system, please share it with us .

J.C. Penney still considers its' physical stores as the main focus of the business, but they also see the value of using E-Commerce in that they let you order products online and then pick them up at a local store.