• The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, January 31, 2008 12 PM

With sales slipping and retailers bracing for recession, J.C. Penney chairman and CEO Myron "Mike" Ullman III says the retailer will announce plans today to merge the buying and marketing operations for store and online sales, cutting as many as 200 jobs. Penney's December same-store sales fell 7.5% compared with the year-earlier period, more than the company expected.

Ullman says he sees opportunity in a slowing economy for Penney, however, which counts half of U.S. households as customers, but only gets 7% of their shopping dollars. Its biggest opportunity in the downturn, he says, "is to make every visit they make to our store, Internet or catalog more productive by offering more innovation."

Ullman cites the in-store cosmetics boutiques for Sephora fragrances and cosmetics as an example. Sephora was one of Penney's best-performing categories during the Christmas season, he says, and it wasn't heavily price-promoted.

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