Mine is, and that's coming from a highly edited mailing list as well. To be honest, it's all a bit much. There are so many wonderful people all running their own small businesses nowadays, feeling like they have no choice but to try to keep up with the big guys, while in reality the whole reason people started shopping with indie designers was to get something DIFFERENT from the big guys.
Norwegian Wood is no different, in the past we have indeed done a Black Friday sale. But it never felt quite right. We're not a big box store operating on large margins. We're not about buying/selling as much stuff as you can, just because it's cheap.
Offering items at a heavy discount basically means we're not making money off of those sales. And you know what...it's really hard to stay in business and keep making new awesome stuff if you're not making money!
You may be wondering "well why can those big stores offer such big discounts and you can't?".
It's quite simple. On an average day those big brands are charging you a LOT more for their products than what they cost. So much so that they can discount them by 70% and STILL make money. This is not the case with Norwegian Wood. We work hard to offer you the lowest possible price on items that are 100% made in Canada and the US on a regular basis. So you're getting the best price all the time.
We even have a great sale section in our Etsy shop where we put older styles at prices that are just high enough to cover the costs of making the garment plus overhead. We'd rather see older styles finding a new home than sitting on a shelf after all! Handmade clothing deserves to be worn!
So in the end, this year we decided not to participate in Black Friday in the traditional way. Instead of offering sale prices that only make it harder to keep making new designs for you guys to enjoy we've decided that for each "sale section" item that is bought this weekend we're going to donate an additional piece of clothing to a Montreal donation dropoff point for Syrian Refugees. Norwegian Wood is already currently putting together a garment based care package, however your purchases will directly increase the amount of clothing we will be sending.
This Thanksgiving Weekend we're going to focus on what we HAVE, and giving the excess to people in serious need.
xo
Angie
Designer/Owner
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Diane
November 27, 2015
I love this post. I run a teeny tiny Etsy shop (Beloved Endeavour) and really was not going to do a black Friday sale but I just kinda felt I ought to because it’s almost expected. It’s already hard enough to keep things ticking over without feeling that I have to keep up with the big boys too. Thanks to this post I may not participate next year. Thanks for speaking up for the indies!