JCPenney is taking a page out of Walmart's playbook as it rolls out curbside pickup
- JCPenney is taking a cue from the strategies of retailers like Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods by expanding its curbside pickup service.
- JCPenney Style on the Go will be rolled out to 50 stores nationwide starting next week, after a pilot program tested well at the company's concept store in Texas.
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JCPenney is taking it to the streets.
The department store announced earlier this week that it would roll out curbside pickup to 50 of its stores in the US after piloting the program at its recently opened concept store in Southlake, Texas. Starting next week, shoppers in select markets will be able to use JCPenney Style on the Go to pick up online purchases from outside their local stores.
In a call with investors on February 27, JCPenney CEO Jill Soltau cited the program as one of the core components of the company's revitalization process.
"To rebuild the fundamentals of our business, we are making improvements ranging from our core store processes to our integrated digital strategy," she said during the call. "We are now consistently reducing inventory, improving shrink, re-envisioning our merchandise and rolling out innovations including curbside pickup."
Though many retailers offer buy-online-pickup-in-store services, JCPenney will be one of the first major department stores to roll out curbside pickup at scale. The offering has proven especially popular for companies like Walmart, where an estimated 11-13% of shoppers used the service in 2019, according to a report by financial services firm Cowen and Company. Curbside grocery service is expected to account for 33% of Walmart's sales in 2020.
The study also found that curbside users tend to not only spend more than regular shoppers, but also foster higher rates of brand loyalty, both perks that could be particularly advantageous for the struggling JCPenney.
"These shoppers are willing to spend more using grocery pickup and tend to be more loyal to Walmart among other grocery pickup services," Cowen and Company wrote in a note to Grocery Dive.
Curbside has also become a major focus for companies like Whole Foods and Target, both of which have continued to invest in these programs after expanding them nationally. Just last week, Target announced plans to retrofit stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the program, according to the Dallas Morning News.
However, whether or not a program like this will resonate beyond groceries and toiletries remains to be seen. In the past, retailers have dabbled in limited curbside programs that either skewed on the side of promotional gimmick, as in the case of Nike, or unsustainable, as it was for Sears and Kmart.
Still, Soltau remains confident the program will be successful for the company and make "stores even more convenient."
"We tested it at our brand-defining store and our customers responded so positively that we are quickly expanding this service," she said.
