JCPenney Salon in Goodlettsville, TN

The only reason I go to JCPenney is to go to Sephora, one of my favorite makeup places. Plus, I get a free birthday gift from Sephora each year. My favorite gift there was the Kat Von D or KVD makeup: tattoo eyeliner, three lipstick samples, and face powder. It totally won me over to KVD products. I started buying KVD tattoo eye liner and lipstick (Lolita) from Sephora.

This review is for the Portrait Studio:

I was in town from California and my sister suggested we do family photos, since I'm never in town during the holidays. She always goes to this studio so she didn't even think twice about making an appointment here again.

First, they were pretty booked up (since it's the holidays, we understand) but we were able to find a slot that worked with us. During the phone call, they informed us that it would only be a 15 min session since they are booked up. We were confused as how they would get all of us together with different poses and backgrounds in all of 15 minutes but we still booked the appointment.

Second, we arrived at our scheduled time just to wait 45minutes to an hour until they finally took us in. When we arrived, they were in a session with a different family, so I just thought they were running behind schedule. Well, they took about 30 mins with that family, not including the time they were in there before we arrived. Then, the photographer took a brake after she was done with their pictures. Upset at having to wait that long and that we had rushed to be there on time, my sister went up to ask what was taking so long since we supposedly only had 15 mins for our session and it was way past our appointment time. They told her the photographer is pregnant so she needed a break to eat a bit. We are totally understanding people but they didn't communicate with us so it was frustrating.

Third, once it was time for our session they had the Christmas background. Although it was pretty, we wanted a different background and they didn't even ask about that (what if I didn't celebrate Christmas?). We did couple of poses then the photographer wanted to do pictures of just the kids. My sister said she didn't want that, and wanted pictures with all of us. Mostly because the reason for the pictures was because I was in town. She had already gotten done their family pictures where she had pictures of just the kids. We were done in about 25 minutes because "they had taken enough pictures of us".

Fourth, they showed us our pictures and we didn't have much to choose from since they only took 9 poses. Some did come out nice and we went ahead and ordered our pictures which they said would be ready in four days but they were actually ready in three!

Fifth (and final), my sister tells me that she spoke on the phone with someone at the portrait studio and they told her it was supposed to be 20 poses for a 15 minute session. She then tells them that wasn't what we received. Rudely, they respond "well, what do you want me to do about something in the past?". That's super unprofessional!

Willing to give them one more shot, just because their prices are fair, but if the experience is the same or even worse...I or my sister won't be using them again.

If you plan on buying anything in this store, block out your whole afternoon, cancel all your appointments, tell your family to keep a dinner plate warm for you because you are going to be late.

Today I wanted to buy some really nice towels I found at a great price. I also browsed the rest of the store. As I was browsing, I took note of where the check-outs were because I already assumed they would be few and far between. When I was ready to pay and leave, the front register was about ten people deep so I decided to take my chances at the back register. To my delight, it was only 6 people deep. Well, I'm wondering if I made a big mistake because I waited, and waited, and waited. The woman behind me gave up and left. I finally got to be third in line and it came to a complete standstill. I waited, shuffled my feet, waited, looked around at all the miserable people in line with me, waited some more. One register was helping another employee who was shopping and was disagreeing with prices on her receipt. She was there at that register from when I was 7th in line. She's still there when I'm third in line. The other register was taking an amazingly long time to ring up all the other customers. Then the cashier walked away. I finally left the line and said forget it. The lady in front did the same thing.

You lost several sales that day!

Worst JCpenny ever, staff in women's department didn't take me serious when I asked what color Santa suit the Santa outside there store was wearing that takes pictures with the kids. They laughed in my face accused me of prank calling  followed by not answering my questions and then hung up on me. Will never shop there again. And by the way found the Santa was wearing orange Santa suit what the heck??? But thanks JCpenny for nothing. Customer service sucks.

This review is of the Sephora inside this JCPenney. Very unimpressed with this store. I went there 2 days ago to spend a giftcard that was only good at a Penney's Sephora, not at a freestanding Sephora store. When I got there, the items that I wanted to get were sold out, even though they had been listed as available on the website using the "locate in store" feature. Their entire selection was very picked over, with many displays sitting empty and a large proportion of products out of stock. No one greeted me when I came in or offered help when I was clearly wandering around looking for something -- I had to track down an employee, and when I told her I had driven all the way there because the website said my items were in stock, she basically said it was my fault for not having called to ask. In that case, why have a "locate in store" feature on the website?

The sales associate told me that since my items weren't in the store, she could have them shipped to my house. I paid for the items with the giftcard and got a receipt. The next day the transaction was cancelled without my being notified. The manager I spoke to on the phone about this told me that it's not possible to have out-of-stock items shipped to your house and pay for them with a giftcard, even though Sephora offers this service with all other payment methods. Why? And if that's the case, why did the transaction apparently go through the first time?  The manager blamed this on the employee who rang me up. (If you're a store manager, the buck stops with you, not your employees.)

When I told this manager that the store selection was poor and everything I wanted was sold out, she responded "well, it's the holidays."  I don't find this level of service acceptable at a high-end makeup store that charges $30 for a lipstick. I have received conflicting information from every employee I've talked to and encountered a "If you don't like it, it's your problem" attitude," and been left unable to spend a giftcard that the gift-giver already paid in cash for!  I've been shopping at freestanding Sephora stores for 10 years and never had a problem or reason to complain. I'd advise people to stay away from the ones inside Penney's, or at least this one.  Unprofessionally run & unpleasant to shop in.