Home Prepares for a Makeover

Home Textiles Today Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 2/13/2012 2:00:00 AM

NEW YORK - JCPenney will begin rolling out two shop-in-shop concepts per month starting in August. Apparel will be first up, but branded home departments won't be far behind.
     The plan is to ensure that all home brands - house and national - are meaningful, according to John Tighe, senior vp/gmm for home.
     Although ceo Ron Johnson pointed to over-reliance on private brands as one of the problems with modern departmet stores, there's no plan to put a cap on them, Tighe told HTT. "He doesn't want private brands to be ‘this big' or ‘this small.'"
     Tighe pointed to Royal Velvet, which begins rolling out in late spring as a JCPenney exclusive in bed and bath. "We're gong to use it to target traditional in a beautiful way."
     The window department - long a business in which Penney has dominated - is scheduled to begin evolving sooner rather than later, with the first changes emerging in May.
     "We have lots of ideas about how to make window better, how to make it more inviting, how to open up the floor," said Tighe.
     In the past 90 days, merchants have been sent around the world to scout new ideas for product and merchandising.
     "It's a great time to be a merchant at JCPenney," said Tighe. "It's all about product."