JCP Logistics to close down

JCP Logistics, the Dallas-based fulfillment arm of J.C. Penney Co. Inc., is closing down, Internet Retailer has learned. Employees were told this morning that JCP Logistics would not be accepting any new business. J.C. Penney says the company will continue operations until contracts expire or clients make new logistics arrangements. A spokesman says that could extend “well into 2002.”

JCP Logistics was built on the expertise and infrastructure that J.C. Penney had developed over the years fulfilling its own orders from the J.C. Penney catalog. “We started this in 1999 thinking there would be a strong and growing demand for fulfillment in the dot-com retailing world,” the spokesman says. “That niche has not developed as we envisioned.”

The head of a competing fulfillment company says the news did not surprise him. “We just haven’t come across them much in the market,” he says. J.C. Penney conducted fulfillment operations for Smith & Hawken, Ann Taylor and WetSeal.