J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (JCP) Takes Away In-Store Perk to Save Money

In today’s day and age, the ability to stay connected, regardless of your location, is more important than ever before. When you are shopping at the mall, you expect to be able to check your email, right? Well, you are going to have a more difficult time doing so if you are holed up in a J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP) store.

The company has decided to eliminate its free in-store Wi-Fi as a means of saving $7 million a year.

There is no denying the fact that this is a lot of money. There is no denying the fact that the Penney needs to watch how much it is spending. However, one has to wonder why the company decided to make this move after investing $12 million into the technology just last year. It appears to be yet another blunder in the drama filled saga that has consumed the company as of late.

J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP): Customers aren’t using Wi-Fi

There are two trains of thought. One being that people don’t need a Wi-Fi connection to access the internet. With the use of smartphones, this is a perfectly sound way of thinking.

Along with this, there are just as many who don’t know about or care about a store like Penney providing shoppers with free Wi-Fi.

According to BuzzFeed, mobile checkout devices will still rely on the wireless internet, however, Wi-Fi is no longer going to be available to the public or for store employees to use in correspondence with their mobile phone.

A spokesperson for Penney added, “there was little use by customers.”

Let’s double back on the notion that J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP) should be doing whatever it can to save money. This is an obvious place to start, but let’s be logical: this expense is nothing when you look at the overall net loss of $985 million posted by the company in the year that ended in February 2013.

Former CEO Ron Johnson believed in-store Wi-Fi to be “fundamental architecture” in all of the company’s 1,100.

Johnson is now gone and his Wi-Fi project is on its way out as well.

Chalk this up to another big mistake by J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP). Regardless, these hedge fund managers continue to invest in the company in hopes of a future turnaround:

Patrick Mccormack, Larry Robbins, Christian Leone, and Chase Coleman.

Recommended reading:

Icahn Unloaded Some WebMD Shares Yesterday

Here’s What Jim Chanos Really Thinks About China

The Herbalife Debate In a (Semi)New Light

Disclosure: none