#155 2015 · REI · Outdoor retailwrong-door
REI skipped the biggest shopping day of the year on purpose and paid its staff to go outside instead
the problem
Standing out in a Black Friday market where every retailer competes on the same discounts
background
Black Friday retail competition runs on one lever: deeper discounts, longer hours, earlier openings. Every outdoor retailer chased the same shoppers with the same tactic, and REI, a member-owned co-op rather than a public company, was competing for loyalty in a category where price wars favored whoever could discount hardest and longest.
REI's leadership asked what the co-op actually wanted from its members beyond a Black Friday transaction — repeat, values-aligned relationships, not one-day traffic. The idea on the table was the opposite of every competitor's plan: instead of opening earlier, close entirely, and pay every employee to do something else.
the move
Instead of deeper doorbusters, REI closed all its stores on Black Friday, paid its 12,000+ employees to take the day off, and asked customers to #OptOutside rather than shop — forfeiting the industry's single highest-volume sales day by design.
the payoff
REI added more than a million members in 2015 — record growth — while revenue still grew 9.3%, comparable-store sales rose 7% year over year, and web sales grew 23%, all in the same year the co-op forfeited its highest-volume sales day. REI made the closure permanent in 2022.
what came after
REI's #OptOutside became an annual tradition joined by hundreds of partner businesses and public land agencies, and in 2022 REI made the Black Friday closure permanent policy rather than a one-off stunt — one of the few retail campaigns to functionally forgo a day's revenue and still be labeled effective.
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references
- [1]Retail Dive — REI's record membership growth boosts online, in-store salesRetail Dive, 2016retaildive.com
- [2]REI Newsroom — 10 years of #OptOutside: REI Co-op continues to close its doors on Black FridayREI Co-op, 2025rei.com