Outdoor outfitter Patagonia attracted positive attention when it announced that it would be open on Black Friday, but donate all of its sales (not its profits: all sales) from retail stores and its website to environmental charities. Now the sales have been tallied, and the retailer took in a total of $10 million.
The idea of closing on Black Friday used to be out of the question, until competing outdoors retailer REI began doing that last year, encouraging customers and employees alike to go enjoy the outdoors. The co-op harvested lots of good publicity for that move.
Patagonia, meanwhile, reports that it took in five times what it what expecting (warning: auto-play video at that link), or a total of $10 million in sales for the day.
If you want to be crass about it, this is also a good business move: some of those sales may have been to people new to the brand who will return on a day when the company isn’t raising funds for charity.
The company’s leaders were surprised and delighted at the response, noting that the high sales just mean they can give five times as much money to small, local environmental charities.
“The enormous love our customers showed to the planet on Black Friday enables us to give every penny to hundreds of grassroots environmental organizations working around the world,” the company said in a statement.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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