Many thanks to my friend Another Jennifer, for bringing this story to my attention…
In Brunswick, Maine there’s a really neat shop called Shift – Sustainable Home Goods. They sell (clearly) products for home, yard and personal use that are eco-friendly and green. Man, I really wish I had a store like this nearby (we have an awesome natural foods store that sells some home/personal products, but it’s limited).
They announced on their blog recently that they are staying closed on Black Friday. Here’s what they said (emphasis on text by me):
Yep, you read that correctly. Shift Sustainable Home Goods, a retail store that cannot not exist unless we convince you to buy stuff, is going to be closed on Black Friday.
Are we crazy? Perhaps. Poor business people? Sometimes, but not usually. Anti-Christmas? Not at all. Tired of mindless consumerism, advertising deluges, hyped up ‘sales’ and ‘deals’ and the continuing pressure to replace genuine family time with buy, buy buy? YES!
We love Thanksgiving. It’s the best holiday ever. A whole day to cook, eat great food, hang out with friends and family, and, most importantly, reflect on the incredible bounty and blessings that most of us have in one way or another. It’s that simple, and that wonderful. Unlike Halloween, now an $8 billion dollar industry in the US, or Easter–$16 billion–Thanksgiving is not a holiday that can be ‘consumerized’ quite as easily. At least, not until recently, when big box stores have started opening not just early on Friday, but on Thanksgiving evening, with so called deals (often manipulated to appear better than they are and available only to select few) to entice folks away from their homes. Disgust is not too strong a word for how we feel about that.
We’re not anti consumer. We’d sure be in the wrong business if we were! We believe in selling useful, well made, long lasting products at a fair price. We believe in selling products from companies that pay close attention to their social and environmental impact, who often chose the right way over the easy money way. We believe in selling products that in some small way, make your daily life a more sustainable one, and we believe that each person making one more sustainable choice matters.
If you read my Climate Change Rant or my post about Buy Nothing Day, you can probably imagine how happy Shift’s blog post makes me. A retail business that’s setting the example – that’s awesome. Imagine what kind of world we would have, if even just a few of the mega-corporations took this mindset. It’s powerful to think about, and motivates me even more to continue working for sustainable change. Have I convinced you yet to stay home on Black Friday? Send box stores (many of whom are now forcing their employees to work on a major holiday) the message that we won’t buy in (pun intended) to mass-consumerism!!
Shift is an awesome store. I’m lucky to be within walking distance of it. There’s also a great natural foods store a few doors down. This post makes me want to shop there more!
Luckily you can order some of their stuff via their website.
Oooh – walking distance?! That’s awesome. I know how you feel, every time I go into our natural food store, I always wonder why I don’t go there more often (probably has to do with cost, unfortunately).