Ackman: Selling Penney-Stocks

Bill Ackman was on CNBC Tuesday.  His purpose seemed to be selling J C Penney Stocks.

Let's Review

My first article on the topic was Your Logo  (Friday 7. September 2012) There I posed the question, "What does your logo look like?  You're probably wrong."  The reason? You are confusing logos with the graphics.

In my second article  JCP and 1000 Pennies, I reviewed,:

The Catalogue, Slim Fairview's Illustration of Empirical Analysis, and Miracle Marketing. 

Here, I will bring the discussion closer to home.

Consumers do not check sales figures, profit margins, and the stock market before deciding where to shop.

You don't convince consumers to buy cloths by convincing investors to buy stock.  You convince investors to buy stock by convincing consumers to buy clothes. 

You don't attract customers by attracting investors, you attract investor by attracting customers. 


Comparing Apples to Penneys

Apple:

i-Pod 
i-Pad
i-Phone
i-Pad
i-Mac

You don't need a lot of square footage to sell apples.  The analogy was invalid.  Worse!  Remember the Hippocratic Oath?  "First, do no harm...."


Coupons 

One thing I can say without fear of contradiction. Every living American man, woman, and child has one thing in common.  "We all eat."  And, unless you're "Ole Grandpappy Amos is the head of the clan, he roars like a lion but he's gentle as a lamb" (Harry Ruby, From The Real McCoys) you buy your food in a supermarket.  When you go to the supermarket, you brig coupons.  They are in the Sunday Edition of almost every newspaper in America.  People write books about couponing.  There is a television programme about couponing.  Couponing even has a Queen!

Mr Ackman believes, people don't want to wait for a sale, wait for coupons, or go to the store with whole bunches of coupons.  JCP even sent customers a letter to that effect.  (And they included a coupon.)


Let's Be Completely Truthful

Mr. Ackman owns a lot of Penney-Stock.  He as a vested interest in the stock going up.  Still, he is not a majority owner.  He may be the biggest kid on the block, but he is not bigger than all the other kids put together.

Here is something my Dad taught me before Mr. Ackman was born.

"You can win the argument and lose the sale."

Keep arguing with the consumers. You have nothing to lose.  They're not going into your store anyway.

Warmest regards,

Slim


If you find anything here to be helpful, please do not hesitate to send me a really tricked-out laptop and to put a few dollars into the envelope along with the thank you note. Slim


Contact information available on Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/slimfairview/ 

Slim

PS  Now, I think I will read Andrew Ross Sorkin's Op-Ed piece in the New York Times.

Slimfairview@yahoo.com

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