J.C. Penney delays closing 138 stores one month due to stronger sales

J.C. Penney Co. said it’s delaying its plan to close 138 stores by one month because sales and traffic at the locations have been better than expected.

The only Southern California store involved is in Orange.

In a bid to cut costs and boost its long-term performance, the department store chain had announced Feb. 24 that it planned to start liquidation sales at the 138 stores on April 17 and to close the outlets in mid-June.

Penney said the liquidation sales would now start May 22 with the closures set for July 31.

“Affected locations have seen better-than-expected sales and traffic, which is a common occurrence when store closures are announced,” Penney spokeswoman Daphne Avila said in an email Friday.

“Traffic typically increases in closing store locations for a variety of reasons, including curiosity, nostalgia and the lure of lower prices,” she said. “Meanwhile, it’s advantageous for the company to continue selling through spring and summer merchandise at current promotional levels by pushing liquidation back another month.”

Like many brick-and-mortar retailers, Penney is struggling with consumers’ increasing shift to online shopping and stiff competition, especially in apparel. Penney noted that two-thirds of the stores scheduled to close are in rural markets.

The 138 stores that will be closed are part of a roster of 1,013 J.C. Penney stores.

Penney’s postponement came as the government announced that overall U.S. retail sales fell for the second straight month. Sales in March fell 0.2% from the previous month and February’s sales were revised down to a 0.3% decline, the Commerce Department said Friday.

The March drop was partly the result of reduced spending at auto dealerships and gasoline stations. But the report also underlined the continued shift to e-commerce.

Although department store sales rose 0.2% in March from the month before, they were down 4.5% from a year earlier. At the same time, sales at non-store retailers — which includes online outlets such as Amazon.com Inc. — rose 0.6% in March and 11.9% during the last 12 months, the Commerce Department said.

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