In an effort to fight Black Friday creep, REI is closing its stores an encouraging customers to “OptOutside”.
This Black Friday, outdoor goods retailer REI is urging consumers to skip the stores and head to the hills.
The Seattle-based clothing retailer announced it is closing its 143 stores on the biggest shopping day of the year and paying its 12,000 employees to spend the day enjoying the great outdoors.
REI CEO Jerry Stritzke said Black Friday has gotten out of hand and shouldn’t be spent in stores and shopping malls. To encourage people to get outdoors, REI has launched its “OptOutside” campaign on Twitter and created a website where people can share photos of their experiences outdoors.
“[W]hile the rest of the world is fighting it out in the aisles, we’ll be spending our day a little differently. We’re choosing to opt outside, and want you to come with us,’’ Stritzke wrote on the campaign’s website, optoutside.rei.com.
“We’d rather be in the mountains than in the aisles,’’ he said in a video promoting the initiative.
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The announcement immediately generated positive feedback on social media. “The holidays are about families, not shopping,’’ wrote one person on Twitter. “I hope it’s catching’’ wrote another. As of Oct. 31, REI reported that more than 752,000 people had chosen to #OptOutside on Black Friday.
The move coincides with efforts nationwide to curb Black Friday creep that forces thousands of retail workers to spend their Thanksgiving holidays behind the cash register instead of at the dinner table with friends and family. Over the past few years, stores that traditionally opened early on Black Friday have extended hours into Thanksgiving in the hopes of drawing bigger crowds for a longer period of time.
Results have been mixed. Last year, Friday weekend sales declined 11%, according to the National Retail Federation, even though many stores opened earlier on Thanksgiving Day.
REI isn’t the only retailer bucking Black Friday creep. Several large retailers have announced they will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, including GameStop, Staples, Publix, Costco and Nordstrom.
Still, shoppers intent on spending their holiday in the stores will have plenty of options. Toys R Us, Target, Macy’s, Kmart and other major retailers all open on Thanksgiving Day, and Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, stays open all day, every day.
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