02/06/2026
He called his own customers drug addicts and then wondered why they left.
1902: James Cash Penney opens a small dry goods store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
He calls it the Golden Rule store.
The concept is simple.
Fair prices.
Quality goods.
Honest service.
No credit.
No gimmicks.
Just value.
Families in mining towns across the West line up because they trust him.
By 1929, JCPenney is listed on the New York Stock Exchange with hundreds of stores.
They survive the Great Depression because customers know exactly what they’re getting.
By 1973, JCPenney reaches its peak with over 2,000 stores across every state in the country.
They become the anchor tenant in shopping malls everywhere.
Millions of families build their lives around the brand.
For over a century, the formula never changes.
Coupons.
Sales.
Promotions.
Clearance racks.
Customers love the thrill of hunting for deals.
They clip coupons.
They wait for markdowns.
They check the “How Much You Saved” line at the bottom of every receipt like it’s a scoreboard.
JCPenney understands its customer perfectly.
Then the board makes a fatal decision.
In November 2011, they hire Ron Johnson as CEO.
Johnson is the guy who built Apple’s retail stores.
He’s never run an entire company before.
His plan: kill the coupons, eliminate the sales, and replace everything with “Fair and Square” pricing.
No more fake markdowns.
No more promotions.
Just one honest low price every day.
It sounds brilliant on paper.
It’s a disaster in practice.
Johnson rolls out the new pricing in February 2012, barely three months into his job.
He doesn’t test it first.
Customers stop showing up.
Revenue drops 25% in a single year.
JCPenney loses $985 million in 2012.
Same-store sales in the fourth quarter crash 32%.
That’s the worst quarterly decline in modern retail history.
When shoppers tell Johnson the new system isn’t working, he says customers need to be “educated” about the pricing.
He compares their love of coupons to a drug addiction.
He wants JCPenney to feel like an Apple Store.
But JCPenney is not Apple.
Its core customer is a woman earning between $35,000 and $100,000 a year who loves a good deal.
She doesn’t want to be educated.
She wants her 40% off coupon back.
Johnson is fired after 17 months.
The previous CEO comes back to try to save what’s left.
The bleeding never stops.
JCPenney files for bankruptcy in May 2020.
A company that survived two World Wars and the Great Depression couldn’t survive one CEO who didn’t understand his own customers.
Meanwhile, TJ Maxx never changes a thing.
They stick to the same off-price treasure hunt model they’ve run for decades.
No reinvention.
No identity crisis.
No attempt to be something they’re not.
Over 5,000 stores worldwide.
Over $56 billion in annual revenue.
Their customers know exactly what they’re walking into every single time.
Your customers don’t need to be “educated.”
They need to be heard.
The people buying from you right now are telling you what they want every single day.
Stop listening to the guy in the boardroom who’s never bought your product.
Start listening to the woman with the coupon in her hand who’s been loyal to you for 20 years.
The smartest companies don’t reinvent what already works.
They protect it.
Because the moment you tell your best customers they’re wrong for loving what you built, you’ve already lost them.
Think Big.
