So today is Black Friday, and for the first time in I dont know how many years, I didnt buy a single thing. Not because I suddenly developed willpower (I have none, ask anyone who has seen my Steam library) but because the one story that actually caught my eye this week wasnt a doorbuster deal at all. Its REI closing every one of its 143 stores today and paying all 12,000 employees to stay home instead of working the Black Friday floor. They're calling it #OptOutside, and honestly, its the first Black Friday marketing stunt in years that made me sit up a little.
Think about that for a second. Every other retailer on earth is elbow-deep in doorbuster ads and countdown timers on their homepage right now, and REI just decided nope, were shut, go outside. Their website today isnt even trying to sell you a tent, it just points you at a trailhead finder. Thats such a strange thing for a company to do in the middle of the biggest shopping weekend of the year that I actually went and read about it twice to make sure I wasnt misunderstanding the story.
I get that its still marketing. Nobody closes 143 retail locations out of pure altruism, and REI is a co-op, which already puts them in a weirder position than a normal public retailer chasing quarterly numbers. But I dont really care that its marketing. Its a good ad! It made me, a person who has bought exactly one item from REI ever (a $40 headlamp, still works fine), think better of the company. Compare that to every other email in my inbox this morning, which is just increasingly aggressive percentage signs. "70% OFF EVERYTHING." Everything? Really? Come on.
The rest of Black Friday is exactly what youd expect
Ive got Best Buy and Target both open in tabs right now just to see what happens, and both are doing that thing where the page hangs for a few seconds before anything loads, which I assume means half the internet is doing exactly what Im doing. Nothing has fully fallen over yet as of early afternoon, but give it time. This is also the first real Black Friday for Apple Pay, which launched back in October, and I used it at a coffee shop this morning mostly just to see if it would work and not because I needed a $4 latte. It did work, tap and done, no signature, felt a little bit like the future for about four seconds before I remembered Im still standing in a Peets holding a paper cup like its 2004.
My actual complaint, and I complain about this every single year at this point so skip ahead if youve heard it: the "doorbuster" concept has completely stopped meaning anything. Half the deals advertised as one-day-only Black Friday specials have been running since last Tuesday, quietly, on the same retailers site, under a slightly different banner. I checked a specific TV I was half considering — a 50 inch Vizio — and the "doorbuster price" was eleven dollars less than what it was selling for on Cyber Monday last year at the same store. Eleven dollars. Thats not a deal, thats a rounding error dressed up in a Santa hat.
Anyway. Im not outside today, before anyone accuses me of hypocrisy, its 34 degrees and my dog made it very clear at 7am that she has no interest in a "hike" beyond the length of the driveway. But Ive got the REI page open in another tab, and next year I might actually plan around it instead of around the sales. Funny how the store that closed its doors is the one that got me thinking about shopping less, not more.
One last thing: if youre doing any online buying this weekend, double check youre actually on the retailers real site before you type in a card number. Ive seen at least two lookalike domains show up in search ads this week for stores that are absolutely not who they claim to be. Not going to name them because Im not 100% sure they werent just cleared out already, but be a little paranoid. Its Black Friday, everyones distracted, thats exactly when this stuff works.