JCPenney

First off, I want to say I have been your customer for a lengthy time. JCPenney is within the top three picks when searching for clothing or household items. That said, I brought a cool rose quartz/​sterling silver simple bracelet in to the jewelry dept a few weeks ago. I brought it in for an estimate to get the clasp fixed. I didn’t need it fixed, but wanted to see if the price would be reasonable or if I should fix it myself. I was told by the associate that they would send it out for a free estimate and I would receive an email where I would have a choice of yay/​nay based on the price. I was asked to sign a form and was given a claim receipt. I received a phone call that the bracelet was all fixed and thought «well damn! the jeweler must have realized how easy this was and done it for free!!!»…OH NO… I was charged $ 25 to fix a simple clasp that I could have fixed myself with a pair of needle nose pliers. The bracelet was purchased off ebay years ago for $ 20 and I am not happy at all. I am not a fancy jewelry gal so this was not necessary and the price is absurd. An email as promised would have done us both some good. I did not get the service verbally given to me. I did not get a chance to say yay/​nay. I was ripped off. One thing I know for certain is that I will never visit your jewelry department any longer as your employee that assisted me either lacks knowledge of the job or is a thief. And when I think of you for my other shopping experiences, I will think of someone else instead. Totally blindsided as I have had a great experience in your other departments, well except for your salon which I reviewed here on Unilocal as well. Time to provide some training to your staff and improve customer service.

I love this JC Penney, granted it is small and has a smaller selection than bigger stores. The staff is ALWAYS friendly, they have a Sephora inside, and they always text you coupons if you ask for them.
The selection could be better at times (at one time I couldnt find any underwear for sale for my toddler — wth?). Their toddler clothes section is TINY, which always disappoints but the rest of the store is pretty danged good.
I always find super deals, cute clothes at reasonable prices, and I love how nice the employees are.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the rewards program too :)

This is sole-​ly for the shoe section… pun intended. My friend was trying to make a transition from her norm, which is the wear heels all the time. So, she was trying to find some flatter shoes. They had a decent selection of both men’s and women’s shoes. A lot of the shoes were on sale or on clearance as it was after the holidays. Also there were a lot of places to sit down to try the shoes on or if you were just tired of walking, which was good because if you’re a guy and you’ve ever had to go shoe shopping with most girls, the boredom can set in quick and your legs can get tired quick especially since many times some girls are picky and are less descriminate than guys.
So, we get into the ladies section and unlike Nordstrom where the salespeople are ravenous to make a sale or assist you, the people in this section kind of just mull around and shuffle the same boxes back and forth. Being in retail myself several years ago, one thing that gets on my nerves is when sales associates huddle around the register and just chit chat and customers keep look at them giving the «Excuse me can I get some help look» and they just keep hanging out at the register. This was a problem at this section. Then when we went to ask for help after the necessity for help started to get awkward, magically everyone dispersed. We managed to track a girl down. I won’t use her name but my friend simply wanted two pairs of shoes from the back. The girl was serving major ‘tude & rolled her eyes like it was an inconvenience to do her job. If we were allowed to go in the back and get it ourselves, we would.
Then we asked a question about elasticity in one of the shoes to a male associate and he ended up asking the question back to is as if he’d given us an answer to the original question. Useless.
I’m glad I don’t buy shoes often, because I definitely wouldn’t come here with the attitudes of these folks. Even if you’re minimum wage, you still have a choice to be there. They’re probably not minimum wage anyway, but I always say «If you don’t like the situation you’re at in life, do something to change it and don’t reflect your dissatisfaction on others»

I’ve been to JC Penny’s quite a few times recently and I have to say they have really turned it around. They were stunningly good! They had great selection, prices, and even gave us a garment bag. There are lots of people available, which is nice, but their staff are nice if not very knowledgable.
They had a MUCH better selection of men’s shirts than Men’s Wearhouse; about the same for vests & ties; and fewer jackets & pants but everything here was much better quality and most things were quite a bit cheaper.
They are also usually willing to give a super good deal for imperfect merchandise. There was a huge sale going on, and we went to look at cookware. One of the cast iron pans was rusting, and we got it for super crazy cheap because of that. I took it home and seasoned it, good as new.

JC Penney had a great selection once upon a time. Now it’s gone. My husband and I are difficult sizes to shop for (he’s tall and I’m petite) and we used to be able to find clothes here. Not anymore!
The only thing JC Penny had in my husband’s size was Tall shirts. None of the pants fit him in length. Their Petite section used to be pretty decent, but it’s so limited now that I can never find anything. The petite blouses aren’t made for busty petites. It blows my mind how a once great place has such terrible selection. This used to be *the* place I would go for maternity, petites, and tall clothes. It’s both frustrating and disappointing.
The staff members have all been incredibly helpful. They are the reason this JC Penny gets a star.

Came here looking for men’s casual shoes and they had zilch — only dress shoes. We also looked around for new bedding but couldn’t find any styles that we liked. The store is clean and there were friendly staff, but I was disappointed in our visit.

The only times I have come here has been looking for Curtain and Blind parts. They keep reducing stock, this time I was looking for brackets for some older Blinds. They only suggested online places or selling me a new one for $ 50 range. Went to Traget and bought a replacement for under $ 5, which was much cheaper than buying a bracket from here would have been.

I love JC Penney and I can ALWAYS find a sale, but the new restructuring really bothers me. I went in the other day to browse and they are moving everything around. The beds are next to the jeans, and the curtains are next to the pots and pans. What? How does this make sense?! Their shoe selection is just plain awful. We asked the chick where the rest of the shoes were and she said they would be getting more in March, but they have a bunch in back. That’s nice, but I want to see them on the floor.
I really wanted to buy something, but it seems like they got rid of half of their inventory while they try to make the store hip and trendy. I shopped here bc it WASN’T trendy, so we’ll see how it pans out after the major remodel.
Their new pricing irks me as well. Sure they have «everyday low prices» which sounds a bit like Wal-​Mart, but there weren’t any huge racks of clearance or massive signs that say 50% off. When I shop, I want to feel like I’m saving money by buying it on sale and it seems like those awesome JCP sales are a thing of the past. And it seems like those endless coupons are as well.
I won’t give up hope and plan to come back after the remodel, but I really hope they bring back the rest of their inventory! They didn’t have a huge selection of anything. Please don’t let me down JCP!!!

I don’t usually write reviews — good or bad — of chains or mall stores. To me, they are what killed retail customer service and old time salesmanship (having been an industrial salesman for 20 years, customer service means something to me.
I will make an exception for the Olympia JC Penny store. Top shelf.
Prices are reasonable and selection is very good. The sales people actually know what they have in inventory (imagine that at Costco or WalMart?). And if they don’t have it, the item can be ordered and shipped to their store with no special shipping cost added.
They bend over backwards to give good service in your shopping.
Most impressive to me are the discounts. We often get a 10 page flyer in the mail with a discount for store items. If you buy using your credit card, your receipt has an on line address to take a survey about their service quality. For that, you can get an additional 15% or so taken off your next purchase. This can be additive to other discounts you may have in hand. I recently purchased a $ 70 pair of prime label sneakers for $ 14 after all my coupons. That’s nuts!
Service example: Today I went in to buy some polo shirts that I saw were on sale ($ 30 down to $ 14). With my flyer’s scratch off coupon for an additional 20%, I got ready to pay. I found that I brought the wrong part of the coupon in however.
Another store would have said tough luck, bring it in the next time. However my sales clerk Cindy pulled some coupons out from a drawer and asked «How much was your coupon for?» She then found one for 30% (yep, ten % more than I intended) and gave me that discount rather than the 20% I thought I might get.
And then gave me a receipt with the on line code to take a few question survey about her service and get another 15% on my next purchase.
It;s not always price, Service and quality keeps me coming back. And the fact the sales people actually know how to sell !!