To read the Langer Research Associates J.C. Penney survey,
please click here.

JC Penney has been one of the most controversial and widely followed stocks since just over a year ago when recently departed CEO Ron Johnson implemented his turnaround plan, which was such a bust that it cost Johnson his job – and halved the share price. So is it a bargain today, as famed investors Bill Ackman and George Soros believe, or is JC Penney too far gone to fix?

The key question today is whether the company can win back its customers. The stock is likely to rally if JC Penney can win back a meaningful portion of its lost sales, but many question whether this is possible.

To help answer this question, Whitney Tilson, co-founder of the Value Investing Congress and Managing Partner of Kase Capital, commissioned a national survey by Langer Research Associates, which is run by Gary Langer, who has done all surveys and polling for ABC Television for decades. Langer called a randomly selected national sample of 1,000 adults from April 17-21, identified current and former JCP shoppers, and then asked them if JCP “went back to the way it used to be,” whether they’d shop more/come back. Here’s a summary of the interesting results (from the full write-up below):

62 percent of current customers say it’s very or somewhat likely that they’d shop there more than they do now if it brought back its old pricing policy and selection of items. Among former shoppers, additionally, 54 percent say it’s likely they’d come back (and another 7 percent aren’t sure, which beats the alternative, calling it “unlikely”).

But Penney still faces the possibility of a lasting deep cut in its customer base even if it moves to restore its past policies. Of those who’ve shopped there in recent years, 45 percent say they don’t do so any more, and 39 percent of them call it unlikely that they can be enticed back – a net potential loss of 17 percent of customers.

Langer will be publicizing these results shortly, but we’re giving readers of the Value Investing Letter a first look. Enjoy!

To read the Langer Research Associates J.C. Penney survey,
please click here.