JCPenney expects its three-year growth strategy to boost profit

J. C. Penney Company has announced a three-year growth plan and its financial expectations for improved performance beyond 2017. In light of these sales and profit enhancing initiatives, the company expects compounded annual comparable sales growth to be 3 percent; gross margin improvement of 75-100 basis points; net income between 450-500 million dollars and earnings per share of 1.40 dollars to 1.55 dollars by 2019.

"Since becoming CEO a year ago, the team and I have made considerable progress balancing the art and science of retail by improving our execution in omnichannel, marketing, store operations, supply chain and merchandising," said Marvin R. Ellison, Chairman and CEO of JCPenney, adding, “Under this framework, we are taking market share, outpacing competitors and improving the long term profitability of our business."

To focus on private labels, home and beauty

JCPenney plans to drive private and exclusive brand penetration up to 70 percent of total merchandise sales by 2019. This target will be achieved by eliminating labels that are no longer relevant and expanding popular existing brands to additional categories. To further differentiate JCPenney from brick-and-mortar and online competition, the company will maximise opportunities in three specific merchandise strategies.

To achieve its targets, the company aims to focus on special sizes offering by leveraging in-house design and trend teams to deliver quality plus size, petite and big & tall apparel, revitalize the JCPenney Home store including rolling out major appliance showrooms to nearly 500 locations and jcp.com, testing Empire Today flooring in three markets and adding Signature Design by Ashley to the furniture assortment in select stores and jcp.com and expand the number of Sephora inside JCPenney locations, accelerating The Salon by InStyle renovations, rejuvenating center core and emphasizing fine jewellery.

Picture:JCPenney