American Branding

Last month, JCPenney launched American Living, an exclusive (to their stores) line of clothing and home goods. You may have seen the commercials, which resemble the TV equivalent of glossy fashion magazine ads. In an unusual arrangement, the products are being produced for Penney by Polo Ralph Lauren, though (not surprisingly) you won't find his name anywhere on them, or in any of the advertising. This is the first time that Polo has agreed to produce products to be sold under another brand, and it's a clear attempt to draw new, more affluent shoppers to Penney.

I had been eagerly (and somewhat irrationally) anticipating the arrival of this line since first hearing about it last year. Although I'm not a big Penney shopper, I do have several pairs of their store-brand jeans, and I'm always on the lookout for new sources for the kind of clothes I like to wear, and figured that the prices would be lower than for comparable Polo-brand items.

About the only time I get near a JCPenney is when we go to the Northshore Mall in Peabody (not that often), but as it happened, when I was in California last month, we went to a "lifestyle center" (industry-speak for an outdoor, village-style mall) that had a JCPenney, and although the line had not been officially launched at the time, they had pretty much all of the men's clothing in-store already.

Naturally I was pleased by this, until I started looking at the clothing. All the shirts had a big, colorful eagle embroidered on the pocket. Sound familiar? The eagles were bigger than the polo players that have kept me from buying lots of Polo clothes over the years, but, to be fair, at least these shirts had pockets. I know, I should have seen this coming, but somehow I didn't. I wanted to believe that someone could market a line of clothing that didn't need logos, and I also thought that Penney, being a somewhat traditional, middle-of-the-road store, wouldn't go for something so, well, bourgeois.

Anyway, my disappointment was tempered (somewhat) by the fact that the clothes seem to be decently made. In fact, the khakis (which had only a little fabric label on the back) seemed indistinguishable to me from Polo khakis, and I would not be surprised if they were made in the same factories. While it's true that the quality of Polo clothing has declined from what it was say, fifteen years ago (when it was also somewhat less ubiquitous), in general they still use better fabrics and their clothes tend to feel nicely broken-in even when new, which for me is part of their appeal. And the prices, while high for Penney, are indeed lower than what you'd pay for a pair of khakis with a Polo label in Macy's, and the Penney clothing will frequently go on sale, to stimulate sales and interest in the line.

After I had returned from my trip, I decided I wanted a pair of the khakis, so I ordered them online, along with a belt. My order was processed and shipped the same day, which was encouraging. Shipment was via the US Postal Service, which was not. "Tracking" USPS shipments, unlike those of UPS or FedEx, is more of a concept than a reality. The status of your package is updated once per day, if you're lucky, and often says something vague like "shipping information received" or "arrival at unit."

After almost a week had gone by, I figured that I should have received my package, but every day I had looked up my order information on the JCPenney site, and had gotten a tracking number full of zeros and "no information available." Uh-oh. The next day, however, I got not only a complete tracking number, but the information that my package had been delivered. Two days earlier. So now the USPS can bend the space-time continuum? Even though the mail room stopped handling our packages after our office moved within the building last summer, I headed down there, just in case. Nothing there. I checked again the next day. Nothing.

I called Penney customer service. I was told that no action could be taken until ten days after the shipment date, which was still another day or two away, and a Saturday. After the weekend I checked the mail room again (nothing, of course) and called customer service again. They offered to cancel and re-enter my order, but I opted to just cancel and get a refund. I guess I'll just buy the pants next time I'm at the mall. But I have to wonder: that package was allegedly delivered somewhere, just not to me. Who's got my pants?