JCPenney
Department store and ecommerce retailer
Cashier
+ Additional holiday compensation
About the job
- Provide customer service and cooperate to build positive, inclusive, and respectful relationships.
- Solve problems and make decisions that support sales, profit, or customer service.
- Execute work efficiently and effectively while maintaining accountability for actions and outcomes.
- Proactively improve the customer experience and respond to changing situations with energy and urgency.
- Meet established performance standards, including standards related to sales, customer service, profit, productivity, and attendance.
- Greet and assist customers while providing customer service.
- Maintain checkout standards and complete checkout processes, including returns and re-ticketing.
- Assist with checkout signing and merchandising standards, including stocking and merchandising impulse fixtures and replenishment.
- Call for additional assistance when needed at checkout.
- Use the Point of Sale system on a Mobile Warrior device to support line management.
- Assist with Omnichannel efforts, recovery, put-backs, and fitting-room maintenance as needed.
- Participate in annual inventory processes.
- Support company shrink and safety initiatives.
- Assist customers with credit, rewards, and gift card programs and promote Findmore and other sales and customer-service programs.
About the company
JCPenney is a U.S. department-store and ecommerce retailer. Its merchandise spans apparel, home goods, beauty, jewelry, and related services. Customers shop through stores and digital channels, with selected locations also hosting salon, optical, and portrait services. Store operations, merchandising, supply chain, ecommerce, technology, and corporate functions support the business. This scope covers JCPenney itself and does not rely on changing parent-company branding. The workforce connects customer-facing service with the inventory, digital, and commercial functions that keep the retail operation running.
Company Size
N/A
Company Stage
N/A
Total Funding
N/A
Headquarters
Plano, Texas
Founded
1902
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Q2 2026 home sales surged, with furniture up 41% and beauty improving.
- Traffic, e-commerce conversion, loyalty enrollments, and credit-card signups all improved late in Q2.
- Catalyst Brands still backed JCPenney with $800 million liquidity and no revolver borrowings.
What critics are saying
- JCPenney closed six stores in 2026, including Pleasanton and Ross Park; shrinkage continues.
- Second-quarter 2026 sales fell 8% to $1.3 billion, losing share to Dillard's and Macy's.
- Ford City's collapse and smaller Burbank replacement prove the anchor-store model is dying.
What makes JCPenney unique
- JCPenney owns broad mall exposure and suburban reach, unlike niche department-store competitors.
- Its June 2026 marketplace adds third-party assortment without inventory risk.
- Value pricing programs Price Lock and Daly Deals target working families directly.
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Benefits
Health Insurance
Dental Insurance
Vision Insurance
Life Insurance
Paid Vacation
Paid Holidays
401(k) Retirement Plan
401(k) Company Match
Employee Discounts
Company News
JCPenney keeps shrinking, closing its Pleasanton, California anchor store and five more locations in 2026. September 23, 2026 JCPenney has permanently shut its longtime anchor store at a major East Bay mall in California, part of a broader 2026 retreat that has trimmed the once-dominant chain to roughly 640 locations nationwide. The retailer closed its store at Stoneridge Shopping Center in Pleasanton, California, in February, ending a presence that dated to the 1980s. A JCPenney spokesperson told the Pleasanton Weekly that the company could not reach terms on its lease and had no alternative site in the market. The Pleasanton location is not an isolated loss. JCPenney has also closed stores at Seminole Towne Center in Sanford, Florida; Ford City Mall in Chicago; Rivergate Mall in Goodlettsville, Tennessee; Springfield Town Center in Springfield, Virginia; and Ross Park Mall outside Pittsburgh. Each closure follows the same pattern: expiring legacy mall leases and shifting foot traffic forced the company to walk away from locations it once anchored for decades. From 2,000 stores to 640, and still falling. At its peak in the 1970s, JCPenney operated more than 2,000 stores across the country. By the time the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, that number had already dropped to 846, according to SEC filings. Simon Property Group acquired the chain that same year in a deal valued at $1.75 billion. Six years later, the footprint has contracted again, to roughly 640 locations. That means JCPenney has shed more than 200 stores since emerging from bankruptcy, a pace of closure that shows no sign of slowing. The financial picture matches the shrinking map. Net sales fell more than 8 percent year-over-year to $1.3 billion during the second quarter of 2026, Retail Dive reported. Neil Saunders, managing director at the market research firm GlobalData, put the decline in blunt terms. "The market, even just for department stores, grew during the quarter, so JCP's sales dip represents a serious loss of market share." That distinction matters. JCPenney is not simply caught in a sector-wide downturn. The broader department store market grew during the same period, which means the chain lost ground to competitors while the category itself expanded. Lease failures drove the Pleasanton and Pittsburgh closures. In its statement on the Pleasanton closure, JCPenney framed the decision as a lease negotiation that fell apart rather than a strategic pullback: "Regretfully, we are unable to continue our current lease terms for this store location and have been unable to find another suitable location in the market. We are grateful to our dedicated associates and the loyal customers who have shopped at our Pleasanton, CA, location through the years." The company used nearly identical language to explain the loss of its nearly 40-year-old Ross Park Mall store outside Pittsburgh, where lease talks also broke down. When a retailer cannot afford the rent at a suburban mall it has occupied for four decades, the math speaks for itself. Pleasanton sits in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, an area where commercial rents remain steep and foot traffic has shifted toward online shopping and newer retail formats. For a chain bleeding market share, holding a high-cost lease in a pricey California market was evidently unsustainable. A national pattern, not a regional blip. The six closures announced in 2026 span the country, California, Florida, Illinois, Tennessee, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. No single region accounts for the contraction. The common thread is aging mall locations with legacy leases that JCPenney can no longer justify. In Goodlettsville, Tennessee, the Rivergate Mall location joined the list. That closure fits a pattern seen at other JCPenney mall departures, where replacement tenants sometimes move quickly to fill the vacant anchor space with different concepts entirely. JCPenney is far from the only retailer retreating from physical storefronts. Across the industry, retail closures have surged to record levels, driven by the same combination of high rents, online competition, and changing consumer habits. But JCPenney's losses stand out because they come after a bankruptcy restructuring and a billion-dollar acquisition that were supposed to stabilize the brand. Simon Property Group, one of the largest mall operators in the country, bought JCPenney presumably to protect its own properties from losing anchor tenants. Yet the company Simon acquired continues to shed locations, including, in some cases, stores inside Simon-owned malls. The strategy of keeping a struggling department store alive to preserve mall traffic has not reversed the underlying decline. Long-tenured stores are the ones disappearing. What stands out about this round of closures is the age of the locations being cut. The Pleasanton store opened in the 1980s. The Ross Park Mall store operated for nearly 40 years. These are not experimental pop-ups or recent expansions that failed to find an audience. They are legacy anchor positions, the kind of stores that once defined a mall's identity and drew shoppers through the doors. Losing stores with that kind of tenure signals something deeper than a bad quarter. It suggests the economics of the traditional department-store-as-mall-anchor model no longer work for JCPenney at a growing number of locations. The chain has also closed long-standing stores in Fort Worth and departed malls in Maryland that themselves shut down entirely, a reminder that the decline cuts both ways, with weakening retailers and weakening malls dragging each other down. JCPenney has pointed to a new online marketplace as part of its path forward. But the company has offered few specifics about what that marketplace involves or how it will offset the revenue lost from hundreds of closed stores. Meanwhile, the closures keep coming. A company that once blanketed the country with more than 2,000 stores now operates fewer than a third of that number, and every quarter seems to bring another round of goodbye sales. At some point, restructuring stops being a turnaround and starts being a slow liquidation with better branding.
Home among best performers as JCPenney sales decline. Jennifer Marks// Editor in Chief//September 23, 2026 Summary: * JCPenney net sales fell 8% to $1.3 billion * Home was led by furniture, which increased 41% year-over-year * JCPenney launched third-party marketplace online Plano, Texas - JCPenney's net sales fell 8% to $1.3 billion during the second quarter, largely pulled down by problems in apparel. Active, home, jewelry, beauty and salon were strongest categories during the quarter ended Aug. 1. Home performance was led by furniture, which increased 41% compared to the year-ago period. Gross margin as a percent of sales bumped up to 39.2% from 38.7%. in last year's Q2. Margin growth included the impacts of higher product costs, pricing actions taken related to those cost increases, changes in category mix and increased promotional activity. "By the end of the second quarter and continuing into the start of the third quarter, significant trend improvements were seen in store traffic and e-commerce conversion, along with double-digit growth in both new loyalty program and credit card enrollments," the company reported in its Penney Intermediate Holdings LLC Financial filing. During the quarter, the company also launched JCPenney Marketplace, which incorporates third-party managed products as an enhancement to the JCPenney merchandise offered on its website. "Initial results have outperformed expectations, and the company is confident that JC Penney Marketplace will continue to provide incremental long-term growth to its ecommerce website. As these improvements began late in the quarter, second quarter results primarily reflect the pressured consumer environment as well as the impact of lower inventory in key traffic-driving categories," the company said. Net income tumbled 51% to $52 million. At the end of the period, JCPenney had $800 million in liquidity available for future working capital needs and had nothing outstanding under its shared line of credit. For the first half of the fiscal year, net sales declined 6.5% to $2.55 billion. The company reported a net loss of $11 million compared to net income of $41 million in the year-ago quarter. For the back half of the year, JCPenney is focused on its value pricing programs such as Price Lock, Daly Deals and Really Big Deals. The retailer is also rebuilding inventory depth in key private label apparel brands and making improvements to digital availability and fulfillment. "The company plans to implement all these actions throughout the fall and holiday seasons, supported by holiday presentations centered on clear value and family moments, while continuing to monitor the consumer environment and customer response and make strategic adjustments as necessary," it said in its filing.
Home gave JCPenney a lift during challenging Q2. Sales of home-related products gave JCPenney a boost during the second quarter, while its overall sales and income slipped year over year, according to Copper Property CTL Pass Through Trust. Copper Property is an entity created when JCPenney emerged from bankruptcy in 2021 as a private company to sell off properties its new owners, Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management, did not retain. JCPenney later merged with the SPARC Group to form Catalyst Brands. Copper continues to report on Penney Intermediate Holdings for its original function and related master leases. Total JCPenney sales in its second quarter were $1.3 billion versus $1.42 billion in the year-before quarter, while total revenues were $1.36 million versus $1.48 million, Copper Property reported in a statement. Operating income was $57 million versus $126 million in the year-prior period. Net income was $54 million versus $110 million in the year-previous quarter. The Copper Property statement indicated home, beauty, jewelry, active and salon led in terms of product category performance during the second quarter. In the period, JCPenney remained focused on serving working families, refined customer engagement initiatives with clearer value communications, targeted customer activations and improved inventory allocations, and the quarter saw significant and ongoing store traffic and e-commerce conversion trend improvements, according to Cooper Property. As it approaches the holidays, JCPenney will focus on competitive key-items pricing, clear promotional communications and sharper inventory allocations to boost its prospects in the selling season, the trust reported.
Iconic department store is closing locations - including 1 in California. By News Room 22 September 2026 3 Mins Read Another staple of the American shopping mall is quietly trimming its stock. JCPenney continues to shrink its nationwide footprint, with yet another round of closures hitting suburban retail centers in 2026 - including a longtime anchor store in California. The most recent Golden State casualty was the retailer's massive outpost at the Stoneridge Shopping Center in Pleasanton, situated in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now. Thanks for signing up! The store had been in that location since the 1980's, and permanently shut its doors on February after JCPenney said lease renewal negotiations fell apart. "Regretfully, we are unable to continue our current lease terms for this store location and have been unable to find another suitable location in the market," a JCPenney spokesperson told the Pleasanton Weekly. "Network Today is grateful to its dedicated associates and the loyal customers who have shopped at its Pleasanton, CA, location through the years. JCPenney's California retreat is just one of many amid a wider, company-wide contraction. Other stores that have closed this year include locations at Seminole Towne Center in Sanford, Florida; Ford City Mall in Chicago; Rivergate Mall in Goodlettsville, Tennessee; and Springfield Town Center in Springfield, Virginia. The chain also recently closed its nearly 40-year-old store at Ross Park Mall outside Pittsburgh, after similarly failing to reach an agreement on its lease. At the store's peak in the 1970s, shoppers had more than 2,000 locations to choose from. In 2020, prior to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, that number dropped to just 846 stores according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, across the country, the chain's store count has dwindled to roughly 640 locations. While the retailer was snatched up by Simon Property Group in a $1.75 billion deal in 2020, expiring legacy mall leases and foot traffic shifts have forced tough calls on underperforming or high-rent locations. Its finances aren't exactly giving mall rats reason for optimism, either. Net sales reportedly sank more than 8% year-over-year to $1.3 billion during the second quarter of 2026. "The market, even just for department stores, grew during the quarter, so JCP's sales dip represents a serious loss of market share," GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders told Retail Dive. There are still a few signs of life. Beauty, jewelry, home and activewear were among the better-performing categories, while the chain is trying to juice its business with a new online marketplace.
FAMU partners with JCPenney to help students dress for success. September 23, 2026 By Ariana Santana TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - More than 250 Florida A&M University students received support in preparing for upcoming career opportunities through the Suit Up JCPenney event, which provided access to discounted professional attire, gift cards and other resources ahead of the University's Fall 2026 Career and Internship Expo, which is scheduled Sept. 30, at 10 a.m. in the Al Lawson Multipurpose Center. Hosted through the School of Business and Industry's Career and Professional Development Services, the Suit Up JCPenney welcomed 257 students for an evening of shopping, music and giveaways at JCPenney in Tallahassee's Governor's Square Mall. Students received 30% off eligible purchases in addition to a 30% off coupon, providing additional savings as they shopped for professional attire. "Because professional attire is an important component of career preparation, SBI wanted to ensure that our students have access to appropriate clothing as they participate in these experiences," said Vanessa Chatman, associate director of Career and Professional Development Services in FAMU's School of Business and Industry. "We also intentionally chose to open the event to students from across the University so that the broader FAMU community can benefit from this opportunity." SBI also distributed $1,875 in JCPenney gift cards to help students offset the cost of professional attire as they prepare for internships, interviews, career fairs and other opportunities to connect with employers. The event is part of FAMU's broader effort to ensure students have access to resources that complement their academic preparation and help them navigate professional environments. Preparing Students for Professional Opportunities Career preparation extends beyond the classroom. As students pursue internships, attend interviews and meet prospective employers, understanding how to present themselves professionally can be an important part of the process. Through the JCPenney partnership, students from across the University had an opportunity to shop for professional clothing with additional discounts. To further increase access, shuttle transportation was provided to take students to and from JCPenney, helping ensure that students without reliable transportation could still participate in the event. For Gabrielle Jefferson, a first-year biology pre-medical student from Evans, Georgia, Suit Up provided access to professional attire as she adjusts to college life away from home. As an out-of-state student, Jefferson said the transportation provided through the event made the opportunity particularly meaningful. "It means a lot as an out-of-state freshman," Jefferson said. "It is awesome that they put this event together to make professional attire more accessible to students, especially with no means of transportation." For fourth-year accounting student Jerome Parris of Miami, Fla., Suit Up represented something different: a full-circle moment. Parris first participated in the event in 2023, when he purchased his first suit while preparing for FAMU's Career and Internship Expo. "I bought my first suit here before the Career and Internship Expo in 2023, and that really helped me secure my internship," said Parris, who went on to become an accounts receivable intern at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Three years later, Parris returned to the event in a different role. As a member of the Omega Xi Chapter of Alpha Kappa Psi, a professional business fraternity, he volunteered alongside his fraternity brothers to help other students participate in the event. "JCPenney partnering with us to host the Suit Up event creates more avenues for students like me to be dressed for success," Parris said. Building Opportunities Through Partnership The partnership also allows JCPenney to connect directly with FAMU students as they prepare to enter internships and the workforce. Toni Norsworthy-Davis, general manager of the JCPenney location at Governor's Square Mall, said the goal extends beyond helping students find the right outfit. "As a manager at JCPenney, I hope students take away more than just professional clothing," Norsworthy-Davis said. "I want them to leave with greater confidence and a stronger understanding of what it means to present themselves professionally." Norsworthy-Davis said something as simple as finding the right professional attire can affect how students feel as they enter new spaces. "When you dress well, it helps build your confidence," she said. Supporting Students Beyond the Classroom The Suit Up event comes as FAMU students prepare for the Fall 2026 Career and Internship Expo, where they will have opportunities to connect with employers and explore internships and career opportunities. For many students, deciding what to wear can be one of the first questions that comes with preparing for an event of that scale. While Suit Up provides students with an opportunity to purchase professional attire at a reduced cost, FAMU is also expanding resources designed to address students' longer-term career wardrobe needs. The Career and Professional Development Center is launching The Career Collection, powered by MyCareerCloset, a virtual career closet designed to provide eligible students with two business suits at no cost, along with styling and measurement assistance. Together, initiatives such as Suit Up and The Career Collection expand the resources available to FAMU students as they move from the classroom into internships, interviews and the workforce, helping ensure they can focus on showcasing their skills, experiences and potential when opportunities arise. FAMU Fall 2026 Career and Internship Expo Hosted by FAMU's Career and Professional Development Center, the FAMU Fall 2026 Career and Internship Expo will be held Wednesday, Sept. 30, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Al Lawson Multipurpose Center in Tallahassee. The career fair will provide students with an opportunity to connect with employers and explore career and internship opportunities. For additional information and updates about the Fall 2026 Career and Internship Expo, visit the Career and Professional Development Center's Instagram Media Contact: