When I was a little girl is was an exciting day when the JCPenney catalog arrived in the mail. It was always so big and held so many items that were fun to look at. The JCP catalog sat in a place of honor near the phone in our kitchen. Perusing the pages of the catalog was so much fun. Even more fun was when my mom and I would drive to JCPenney to pick up any orders placed from the catalog.
Catalog shopping was all the rage. If you couldn’t get to the store, the store came to you through its catalog. So many items were just a phone call away. The anticipation of waiting for catalog items made catalog shopping even more enjoyable. I wish I could remember what we used to buy through the catalog; I remember catalog shopping regularly.
An era is ending. JCPenney is going to discontinue its big catalog. JCP will still have small niche catalogs, but soon the days of browsing more than the store between the pages of a book will be gone. Even though it’s been many, many years since I shopped the JCP catalog, I’m a little sad that its time has passed.
Consumers shop online now. It is so easy to go to any store’s website and shop all the wonderful items available there. Shopping is a few clicks and you’re done. Penney’s online sales haven’t been great recently because of the economy, but they’re healthy enough to justify eliminating all the costs involved in the big catalog. The catalogs serve as a reminder to me to go to the store’s website and buy the items I’m looking at in glossy print. I will have to be satisfied with the flyers in the newspaper to know what items I want to research further.