Kohl’s is a moderately priced “value” department store that offers national name brands and private label merchandise. The department store is geared towards family, quality and value. They started as a family-owned department store in Milwaukee forty years ago. In the past twenty years, the company has gone through a management buyout and is now traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Kohl’s has expanded nationwide and has more than 630 stores. They plan to add 60-80 stores a year.

They are promotionally driven and compete with the traditional department stores and the discounters. Their philosophy is to be deep and narrow on key items that will drive the business, but also offer fashion at desirable prices.

The Kohl’s customer will always find competitively priced national brands including: Lee, Levi, Dockers, Jockey, Adidas, Carters and KitchenAid. Kohl’s continuously adds new brands to the assortment satisfying current customers and increasing market share. New brands include: Nine & Company, Columbia Sportswear Co., Chaps and Royal Velvet.

Private label merchandise rounds out the assortments by offering exclusivity and good quality at great prices. Private label brands include: SONOMA life + style, Croft & Barrow and Bodysource.

Kohl’s stores are conveniently located as free standing stores or in strip malls and feature centralized checkout for easy in and out.

JCPenney was founded in 1902 by Jamex Cash Penney. Since that time JCPenney has had but one goal: “to serve the public, as nearly as we can, to its complete satisfaction”. It is all about delivering quickly what the consumer wants at the best value. JCPenny is all about Product Selection, Customer Satisfaction, and Value.

JCPenney’s strength in the market place is clothing and home furnishings. They are the leader in bedding textiles.

JCPenney dept stores are largely located at regional malls where most Americans shop for clothes & home furnishings.

JCPenney today offers American consumers three different channels for their shopping preference:

1. JCPenney Dept Stores
1,050 stores in the US and Puerto Rico. JCPenney stores sell fashion at value prices. Target customers fall into the middle of the American population. Avg Household income ranges from $30,000 to $80,000 a year. Retail Business is more than $15 billion a year. When you enter a JCPenney Dept Store expect to find trend-right, high quality fashions in a convenient and appealing shopping environment. Centalized check-out was a demand in serving the customer faster with better merchandise.

2. JCPenney Direct
JCPenney is America’s largest direct merchant for general merchandise. This catalog network is the largest in the US. The 4 state-of-the-art logistics centers process over 33 million orders a year. JCPenney Direct publishes 94 different catalogs each year which serve distinct consumer groups. Over 384 million catalogs are distributed annually, with sales of over $2.6 billion.

3. JCPenney.com
Launched in 1998, the JCPenney Internet Store continues to achieve outstanding growth each year. In the seven years it has grown into one of the largest apparel and home furnishings retail sites on the Internet. JCPenney.com has the highest rate (10.1%) of converting site visitors into buyers in the general merchandise world. This business has grown from $15 million its 1st year to currently over $600million.
The constant with all three channels is that the JCPenney name is one of the most trusted in American retailing. The core and focus of JCPenney’s reputation is its commitment to the consumer.

Sears, Roebuck & Co is now a part of the Sears Holding Corporation. Sears is a leading broadline retailer providing merchandise and related services.

Sears offers a wide range of home merchandise, apparel and automotive products and services through more than 2,400 Sears-branded and affiliated stores in the US and Canada. This includes approximately 870 full-line and 1,100 specialty stores. Sears retail is made up of Full Line stores, Dealer stores, The Great Indoors, Land’s End, Sears Grand, Orchard Supply and Sears Essentials, (which is latest addition to the Sears line-up. The Sears Essentials is a new mid-sized store format which will leverage the best of Sears offerings along with the convenience inspired items , which is a result of the acquisitions of 50 Kmart and 6 WalMart stores. This is a result of the merging of Sears & Kmart.

Most full-line stores are located as anchors within the mall. The recent push has been to focus new locations in free standing format.

Sears is a mid-level priced Department Store. It’s product offering is all about selection, top brands, and value. Even though it is a department store, shopping carts were introduced into the retail format in the past 3 years to accommodate the shopping experience across the breadth of hardlines and softlines categories.

Sears is the only retailer where consumers can find each of the Kenmore, Craftsman, DieHard and Lands’ End brands together – some of the most trusted and preferred brand names in America. These top brands are also their private label brands which have a huge following and drive volume.

Sears’ strength is hardlines. Their consumer is much more focused on appliances, hardware, and outdoors than apparel. Sears tried to change that outlook thru their “softer side of Sears” campaigns the past couple of years. A new campaign is in place to go after the Hispanic market in apparel.

In the past year, the retail floor has changed in that they have opened up the retail floor and put less sales help in the depts…but put them at strategically placed central checkouts on main aisles.

BBB operates specialty retail stores in the Unites States including Bed Bath & Beyond (BBB), Harmon Stores and Christmas Tree Shops. BBB are almost exclusively of a big box format. BBB offers an assortment of merchandise at everyday low prices that are substantially below regular department store prices and generally comparable to or below department store sale prices.

BBB’s domestics merchandise line includes items such as bed linens, bath accessories and kitchen textiles and BBB’s home furnishings line includes items such as cookware, dinnerware, glassware and basic housewares. At February 2005, BBB operated 750 stores in 44 states. Christmas Tree Shops is a retailer of giftware and household items selling an assortment of domestic merchandise and home furnishings at low prices in many categories including home décor, giftware, housewares, food, paper goods and seasonal products. As of February CTS operated 24 stores in six states. Harmon is a health and beauty care retailer which operates 30 stores in 3 states as of February 2005.

BBB’s merchandise consists primarily of better quality merchandise typically found at better department stores. For those product lines that have brand names associated with them, BBB generally offers leading brand name merchandise (including Aero, All-Clad, American Pacific, Braun, Calphalon, Cannon, Nambe, Nautica, Nicole Miller, Noritake, Oxo, Portmeirion, Rowenta, Rubbermaid, Springs, Sunbeam/Oster, Villeroy & Boch, Wamsutta, Wedgewood, Westpoint Stevens and Yankee Candle). BBB, on an ongoing basis, tests new merchandise categories and adjusts the categories of merchandise carried in its stores and may add new departments or adjust the size of existing departments as required.

Federated Department Stores is a retail organization operating department stores that sell a wide range of merchandise including men’s, women’s and children’s apparel and accessories, cosmetics, home furnishings and other consumer goods. Most stores are located at urban or suburban sites, in densely populated areas across the Unites States. As of January 2005, the company through its subsidiaries operated 400 department stores, 66 furniture galleries and other specialty stores. The stores are located in 34 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, with 147 stores located on the west coast, 105 stores in the Southeast, 92 stores in the Northeast, 49 stores in the Midwest and the remaining 66 stores spread in other areas of the United States.

Prior to August 1, 2004, the stores were operated under the names Bloomingdales, The Bon Marche, Burdines, Goldsmith’s, Lazarus, Macy’s and Rich’s. Pursuant to a broad national strategy announced in May ’04 by the company, to more fully leverage its Macy’s brand, all divisions with the exception of Bloomingdales were to become Macy’s Home Stores.
The company through its Bloomingdales and Macy’s.Com subsidiaries, conducts direct-to-customer mail catalog and electronic commerce business under the names Bloomingdales by Mail and Macy’s.Com. Additionally, the company offers online bridal registry and gift purchase facilities to customers.

Federated Merchandising Group (FMG), a division of the company, helps Federated Department Stores to centrally develop and execute consistent merchandise strategies. FMG is also responsible for all of the private label development of the company’s retail operations except Bloomingdale’s, which sources most of its private label merchandise through Associated Merchandising Corporation.

In January 2005, a centralized merchandising staff which is located in the corporate offices in New York City will be responsible for the overall strategy, merchandising and marketing of home related categories of business in all of its stores, except stores operated under the Bloomingdales name which retain a separate merchandising staff.