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27th Oct 2021

Penneys responds to calls for online store to be set up for Christmas

Ellen Fitzpatrick

penneys

That’s us told.

Penneys is making some major changes over the coming months in the lead up to Christmas but one thing is for certain, an online store is not one of them.

Penneys is one of the only retailers these days without an online store, with shoppers calling for them to create one since the beginning of the pandemic.

Despite calls for one, particularly as we approach Christmas, Penneys boss has said that there are currently no plans to create an online market.

Speaking to EY partner Roger Wallace, Penneys boss Paul Marchant revealed that the company loves the “bricks and mortar” approach to their business and that won’t be changing any time soon.

Despite other retailers closing their doors during the pandemic, Penneys managed to open up 25 new stores worldwide, with 373 now in total.

Marchant explained: “I get asked ‘will you go online?’ question about 20 times a day. The fact is we’ve got a business that is very successful, very profitable, and a model that is able to be rolled out across many markets and many countries and that is our prime focus.

“However, we always recognise that if customer demands mean that we need to think about another route to market then we’ve got to discuss that, be open-minded.

“But any change in strategy from bricks and mortar needs to be genuinely incremental and enhancing, and until we can find a model that enables us to do that then we’ll stick with what we’re doing.”

So there’s our answer, while we can go online and have a look at some of the items we can expect to see in-store, there are no plans for us to be able to purchase them directly from the site any time soon.