J.C. Penney Co. plans to stop selling major appliances as new Chief Executive Officer Jill Soltau overhauls the troubled department store chain, Bloomberg News reported. The retailer will also end sales of furniture in U.S. stores, and will sell the category online. These changes take effect on Feb. 28, the company said yesterday. Soltau, who stepped into the role in October, began a mission to streamline the 116-year-old retailer, closing underperforming stores and clearing out slow-moving goods to kick-start sales and improve margins. The company made the move to “better meet customer expectations, improve financial performance and drive profitable growth,” it said in a statement. J.C. Penney is making changes as the share price has continued to decline Alex Arnold, a managing director of the consumer practice at investment bank Odeon Capital, said he wasn’t surprised by the move. Former CEO Marvin Ellison had led the move into appliances in 2016, and the strategy was costly to implement because the company had to train employees or hire new ones who could sell the products. The idea was to fill the void left by Sears Holdings Corp., which hadn’t yet filed for bankruptcy but was already reining in store count.
