JCPenney orders employees to destroy unsold clothing

[Newsjock]

Source: WTAE Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH -- JCPenney's American Living line, manufactured exclusively for the retailer by Ralph Lauren, was introduced into stores in 2008. So, employees at the Beaver Valley Mall location told Team 4's Jim Parsons that they were a little shocked when supervisors ordered them to destroy items that had surpassed their shelf life.

"This is a brand new policy. Nothing like this before had been done at Penney's," said one employee, who wished to remain anonymous. "We've destroyed blankets. We've destroyed shirts, sweatshirts. I mean, you name it."

The employee told Parsons that "there was no reason given out" as to why the merchandise should be handled that way.

Three other employees at the same JCPenney store told Parsons similar stories off-camera -- American Living merchandise that doesn't sell gets marked down only so far, and if it still doesn't sell, workers are ordered to destroy it.

... Spokesman Tim Lyons told Team 4:

"For a company like ours, in our business, your brand is your most valuable asset. The most important thing is to protect that brand. And with a few items in the American Living brand, if the brand name is actually on the product, our policy is to destroy it."

Read more: http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/24159837/detail.html

[Coyote_Bandit]

1. They may have

a contractual obligation to destroy it. Those kinds of clauses are not uncommon in the industry.

[Occulus]

15. They ought to be illegal. The law should require them to donate, rather than destroy. n/t

[Coyote_Bandit]

20. And discrimination against hiring unemployed folks

should also be illegal - even though there's an argument that they should be given a preference in hiring.

Lots of things should be - but aren't.

[Obamanaut]

23. "...require them to donate..."? How can that be done if it's their stuff

until someone else buys it - theirs to destroy if they choose.

There may well be a better use for the stuff, but it is still their stuff.

[Occulus]

26. Then limit the destruction to the label only- by law.

Allow them to use it as a tax write-off, and fine them if the clothing is completely destroyed.

We have to start coming down like a bag of hammers on these kinds of policies.

[Obamanaut]

29. It is their stuff. A fine for destroying their stuff is unreasonable. nt

[Llewlladdwr]

30. How would a tax write-off work?

How do you allow a tax write-off for an item that has no value? I mean, if it was worth anything it would be sold, not destroyed.

This is not meant to be rude, but I'm curious as to why this upsets you so much. Why exactly do "We have to start coming down like a bag of hammers on these kinds of policies."?

[jdp349]

35. A tax right off equal to production and distribution costs

seems like a perfectly reasonable solution

[gristy]

2. Standard operating procedure.

Sometimes companies will tear off their labels and maybe mark it with an indelible marker, and then give it to goodwill. But not always.

[RockaFowler]

3. How about??

Take off the labels and give the clothes away to a shelter . . .

When I worked at Sears, we used to give the clothes to Goodwill or some other charity. No-one cares about labels at a shelter. Unbelievable

[petronius]

14. I think these are items where the label is displayed as part of the design of the clothing,

like clothing from Hollister or Abercrombie and Fitch - it can't be removed with total destruction.

That said, I still don't think it's a valid reason not to donate it locally...

[Warpy]

4. Protecting the brand used to mean cutting out the label

before it went to an outlet or a thrift shop as "distressed merchandise," which is what it is after it's been pawed for six months without selling. It's pretty grubby by then.

Most of what I bought in Filene's Basement back in the day had missing or slashed labels.

This is a new and mean policy, making it more difficult for poor people to get cheap, higher quality if dirty clothing that survives more than half a dozen washings.

[Mimosa]

5. Shameful, just shameful. n/t

[dem mba]

6. perhaps the shirts were just that ugly?

fashion euthanasia??

[msongs]

7. used/leftover US clothes are destroying 3rd world clothes businesses...on PBS I saw a show

describing how used clothes from goodwill etc are bundled up and shipped to places like Africa. There is so much of this clothing and it is sold so cheaply that local clothes makers and clothing cannot compete, even traditional non-western styles, so our trash is wrecking local economies and jobs. That's why you see pics of all these people in Africa wearing UCLA and Lakers shirts.

Msongs

[Warpy]

18. Then again, things like unsold and distressed wedding gowns and formals

are snapped up by seamstresses who cut them down and use the material creatively. Some of the Goodwill stuff is also used that way, since heavy winter fabrics are unsuitable for clothing but perfectly suitable for household fabrics when rethought. Some summer stuff is cut apart and dyed with local dyestuffs to make traditional clothing.

It's neither all good nor all bad, in other words.

[Radical Activist]

8. They don't want the wrong kinds of people wearing them.

We can guess who they think the wrong people are.

[Skidmore]

9. I quit shopping at Penneys years ago.

I plan to keep it that way.

[MicaelS]

10. Unfortunately, this is not that unusual

Companies destroy other things too, like electronic hardware. Computers, monitors, printers, TVs. They don't want people dumpster diving, then taking it back for a refund or store credit by claiming they got it as a gift, and no longer have the box. Stupid and wasteful, but no one ever said American business was logical.

[superduperfarleft]

11. I can't think of a store that DOESN'T do this. Why is this news?

Shit, one store I used to work at required us to pour bleach on items if we were going to throw them in the dumpster, and this was just broken Star Wars trinkets.

[Mz Pip]

32. I've never heard of this practice

but then I have no experience working in retail. It just seems like such a waste. It's not like spoiled food.

[Iwillnevergiveup]

12. I remember a long time ago

my husband and I got a bill from Penney's for 10 cents. That's right, 10 cents. He wrote out a check to "J.C. Penny-Pinchers" for no dollars and 10/100 which was duly cashed. Closed our account. Never went back.

[KurtNYC]

13. Many businesses destroy their own unsold product for a variety

of good reasons. Truck loads of milk, chicken, vegetables and salad bar food are destroyed every day to prevent illness.

American consumers throw away half of all the vegetable they take home. We call that thing in the kitchen sink a "garbage disposal" but the only thing that goes in there is food. And JC Penney is only destroying clothing -- cheap, non-essential, high mark-up clothing.

[Occulus]

16. Bad analogy- unsold clothing doesn't make people sick.

They should be required by law to donate unsold clothing.

[KurtNYC]

25. it is not meant as an analogy

They are examples of how the real world works. The price of brand name clothing is based on the perception of the brand.

"required...to donate" = contradictory terms. And there is no shortage of clothing in the world.

[amborin]

17. isn't this like dumping milk, produce, etc....when prices sag

[MilesColtrane]

19. That happens to unsold books too.

It costs money to ship them back to the publisher, so the covers are torn off and sent back for credit.

The coverless books then go into the trash.

[maxsolomon]

21. JCPenny is worried about protecting their BRAND?

news flash: your brand is cheap clothing of no particular distinction. you have nothing to protect.

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. SOP, for those concerned about a brand the brand

is all that matters.

Welcome to a command economy 2.0

[Blue Owl]

24. Thinking with wallets, not brains

n/t

[DailyGrind51]

27. They couldn't donate the clothes to a homeless shelter?

[walldude]

33. You'd think right? Imagine the PR they would get...

This is so fucking stupid. I'd love to meet the idiot who came up with this policy and ask him how the hell he got this far in life being such a fucking idiot.

So instead of getting more sales and a better image by giving the clothes away they lose business and their image is down the crapper for being wasteful morons.


Sucks because I kind of like Penny's, beats the hell out of Wal-Mart or Target.

[DainBramaged]

28. We are a society of too much, even with 'record' unemployment

we produce to excess, purchase to excess, and waste money like drunken sailors. Who here has clothing languishing in their closets that should be given to the local shelter? Putting your clothes in a bin by a shopping center and those clothes wind up in 'thrift stores' and sold by the pound to be shipped to third world countries.


It is our own fault. Write Penny's and Lauren, and complain or threaten to withhold your business because they would rather protect a label.

[Mz Pip]

31. I thought that was what Ross

and Marshall's were for - selling clothes, often brand name, at a discount.

Well, I'm not shopping at Penney's anymore if it does this. What a waste. Donate them to battered women's shelters or to charities that work with people who have lost everything in fires and floods.

[Dulcinea]

34. What a waste.

Why not just destroy the labels & donate the clothes?

[readmoreoften]

36. It's called "the contradictions of capitalism". Standard fare.

The problems of capitalism aren't scarcity, but plentitude. Even though people are starving, ragged, unread, and homeless we have "too much food, too much clothing, too many books, too much housing" to sustain our ever-so-logical and perfect market. The invisible hand demands that we destroy food while people starve (and seal the locks to dumpsters), burn and tear good clothing, incinerate unsold books, and tear down housing to raise demand.

And then we wonder about garbage. The system is mad, violent, and unsustainable by its very nature.

[Odin2005]

37. This is so wrong!

:grr:

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

38. I have done this "job"

Very little of the stuff we destroyed wasn't garbage, most of it was disgusting returns, orphaned accessories, oddball sizes and misc. crap that didn't sell at 90% off.
What little wasn't garbage was basically "scanner sale" merchandise where we didn't pay the manufacture for the goods until it actually sold and if they didn't want their stale merchandise back into the garbage it went.

Definitely not what I was excepting when I was hired as "Internal Audit Manager - Supply Chain"

[Trillo]

39. Love competition while doing everything possible to avoid it

It is an artificially reduced supply (supply/demand). However, I'd guess it's certainly within someone's property rights to deliberately destroy what they own. Does Penny own the merchandise, or is it loaned from the manufacturer?

There are at least two corporate names involved, Penny and American Living. Maybe it's a tax policy issue that somehow improves the balance sheet of one, the other, or both.

"free market?" ha.