RON JOHNSON FIRED

Ron Johnson has been canned.

No, this isn't like when the people of Wisconsin, in all their wisdom, decided to fire fringe Leftist Russ Feingold from the U.S. Senate in November 2010.

In fact, this isn't about SENATOR Ron Johnson at all. It's about Ron Johnson, former CEO of J.C. Penney Co. [JCP].

J.C. Penney Co. [JCP] has ousted its CEO, Ron Johnson, the chief executive who reinvented retail at Apple Inc. [AAPL] and who arrived JCPenney just 17 months ago. Mr. Johnson had a bold vision for the JCPenney. On joining the firm, he said, “In the U.S., the department store has a chance to regain its status as the leader in style, the leader in excitement. It will be a period of true innovation for this company.”

Mr. Johnson abruptly scrapped JCPenney’s dubious pricing policies of marking up prices and then offering discounts, with heavy promotions, and coupons. He proposed to offer more interesting products, from lines like Martha Stewart and Joe Fresh, at reasonable prices all the time.

But the change in pricing occurred with merchandise that was already in stores and that customers were used to, rather than on brand-new merchandise. The approach didn’t fare well with Penney’s customer base of bargain hunters. They rebelled, traffic declined, sales fell and Penney slowly returned to the prior era of pricing, with lots of promotions, lots of price-focused ads, and marked-up prices that would be later marked down.

...“One of the big mistakes was perhaps too much change too quickly without adequate testing on what the impact would be,” said Bill Ackman, the principal shareholder of JCPenney’s and the driving force behind Johnson’s recruitment. After staunchly backing Johnson through the early setbacks, he now conceded that the turnaround effort had been “very close to a disaster.”

Ackman regularly said that they were willing to wait for the turnaround to start getting traction. But the bleeding was too much and now Johnson is gone.

Johnson miscalculated when he treated the wares at JCP as if they were Apple products. He miscalculated when he thought JCP customers were similar to Apple cult buyers.

The problem with JCP was that its prices were still too high for comparable merchandise one can get for at least 30 to 50 percent less on a daily basis at Target or Walmart. It wasn't just about the practice of inflating prices and marking them down. Every good shopper is aware that when you spend $100, and the cashier (sales associate) circles your savings on the receipt and declares you "saved" $200, it's a crock. It's the bottom line that matters - the price and the quality of the merchandise - not the games and gimmicks.

The fact is Johnson's methods crashed and burned. The prices were too high for the quality of the merchandise.

So, that's the story of Ron Johnson getting the boot.

Now, here's the funny part, h/t Right Wisconsin.

The Today Show reported the JCP CEO shuffle.

The problem: They used a photo of our Ron Johnson, the senator from Wisconsin!



What idiots!

NBC News is a mess! Today is a mess!

With Al Roker on the team, it's quite literally a mess.