Early this February, I posted an article on the new marketing strategy being taken by JCPenney. In an effort to revive a dying business, Ron Johnson, the then new CEO of JCPenney, released a new marketing strategy aimed to differentiate JCPenney in the marketplace. Johnson’s plan centered “fair and square” prices. While JCPenney previously sold most of its inventory at discounted prices, studies had shown that many shoppers began realize that a sale wasn’t really a sale. As a result, shoppers would wait until final clearance times to actually make a purchase, thus severely cutting down on the department store’s profit margins.

John had hoped to change this by releasing pricing that made sense. Products were given lower “full price” prices, and each month saw a new promotional mark down on certain items. While the market was full of buzz as this strategy rolled out, apparently shoppers weren’t ready for the new…