I have a lot of appreciation for the fact that, despite how large the company has become, it's very clear that outdoorsiness is still a big part of the REI's DNA, especially with so many companies these days owned by private equity firms that seem to be most interested in milking their brands for all they're worth.
In a similar vein, the state parks of Minnesota usually charge a fee for parking and sometimes for entrance, but those fees are waived on Black Friday. I call it State Park Friday and my wife and I go for a short hike every year :)
I especially appreciate this when I visit REI as a Canadian. Our REI 'knock off' MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop) was inspired by REI, but in the last few years has diverged away from enthusiast mountain equipment and a lot more toward urban oriented fitness activities such as running, yoga and cycling.
I still like MEC, but I like how committed REI has been toward hiking, camping and more backcountry activities.
That is a shame to hear. As recently as 2011 I thought that MEC's house brand gear was much higher quality and had better design and features than REI's house brand. The MEC stuff I bought was comparable to some of that made by more specialist outdoor manufacturers and was a fraction of the price. I still have most of it, and the things I gave away are still in use. I think REI very much caters to the car camper and Instagram hiker consumers who don't really go outdoors. You really have to be careful with the stuff you buy there.
REI has actually begun a fairly substantial investment in improving the quality of their private brand in recent years, actually building an engineering team to take a critical look at everything that they're putting out instead of just relying on the word of whoever they're sourcing it from. I would expect the REI brand to improve a good bit in the coming years
2011 is a long time in gear years! I went to a flagship REI here in Seattle the other day and was happily surprised when I played with the REI house brand gear. I'd recommend giving them a visit and seeing if they have improved (I have no idea what it was like in '11).
I bought a great bag at REI a few years ago that was praised by the ultralight hiking community for being a great, cheap ultralight pack, but now I've heard that REI discontinued it and everything available is a lot heavier.
I've got annual checks sitting here somewhere for both me and my wife. They're never huge, since REI sells such expensive stuff, we never spend much. I think both of our checks add up to around $50. Still, it's nothing to sneeze at.
I'd never actually dealt with a co-op before REI. The profits shared aren't huge, but combined with the membership discount it's often cheaper than shopping online resellers. I'm impressed.
Yeah, I don't meant to imply they're shortchanging anyone - retail sales are tough even on higher-margin goods like outdoor gear. I was just comparing to online retailers, where profit-share + member discount brings them to rough parity.
EMS used to be a go-to of mine. High prices, but good student discounts and sales. I stuck with them because they were incredibly good to their customers - they actually cared about getting people outside and had permanent return/replace on their gear.
But... then an equity firm bought them out. The discounts shrunk, the warranty vanished, and even for material defects within a year there's enormous flak when you try to get support.
REI has been my go-to ever since. They're the only big outdoor supplier left that seems to actually give a damn about what they're selling.
Although REI also eliminated their lifetime guarantee.
It's apparently really hard for this type of store to scale and stay at least somewhat aligned with their initial vision. They almost all become clothing and gear stores oriented to well-off urbanites who want to project an outdoorsy vibe. I agree that, among relatively large chains, REI has stayed closer to its roots than most.
People abuse these sorts of guarantees. Always have. Always will. But it hasn't made LL Bean get rid of theirs. And, especially for many of the sort of goods REI sells, I may not use them much and if they blow a seam or something after a couple of years after they've been used a couple dozen times, I don't think I'm abusing anything by asking them to repair or replace.
So, yes, I understand why they cut the guarantee but, as a longtime customer, I don't like it. (I assume they're still reasonable on a case-by-case basis.)
For whatever it's worth, I've never had issues. They seem to have mostly cut the 'lifetime' part of "lifetime guarantee", and still deal with defects even outside of a one year window.
I suspect it's mostly a matter of REI employees having more discretion than most retail workers - they're usually quite outdoorsy and have a decent eye for what's an unreasonable failure.
That's good to know. I've been annoyed a few times over the years when I've run into someone who was basically boasting about how he wore stuff out over a number of years and just took it into REI for new kit. Why we can't have nice things and all that.
I agree that REI staff are much better than average.
Yeah, I was sad about the loss of a lifetime guarantee, but not very surprised. It seems like a lot of people were either using them for free 'rentals' (returning gear after the season) or lifetime replacements on normal wear. I've still had good results returning anything broken or ill-fitting, at least compared to competitors like EMS.
I assume there are smaller co-ops that are truer to their intentions, but I suspect economies of scale might leave them with very high prices.
LLBean doesn't have the same reputation as an outdoors/backcountry store, but there's a large overlap and they still offer the unconditional warranty REI has since abandoned.
REI is my favorite toy store. I know their prices are higher than, say, Wal-Mart, but I actually feel good supporting them. Plus, you can find insanely good sales if you're a member and you go to their garage sales.
One year I got an entire ski setup (boots, skis, bindings, and installation) for under $300. Ended up reselling them for like $500 3 years later when I moved away from Boston.
Got great boots at a garage sale for like $30, too. You just have to be prepared to get there early and scavenge.
I was into hiking and camping at a young age (Boy Scouts, friends who's parents did it) but my parents weren't what you'd call outdoorsy. We were good for about one or two family camping trips a year.
I'd saved up some cash and bought a few things from REI over the years but now it was a week before freshman year of high school and I needed a new backpack. I also had my eye on an REI house brand beauty for hiking that was a whopping $99 (this was 1997 and we weren't exactly the kind of family spending $99 on frivolous things).
Shocked at the outrageous price (being used to $15 Jansport) my mom proclaimed that it would never happen. I brought up the fact that I had never made it through an entire school year with one single cheap bag and that one REI bag would last me all of high school, so we'd be saving money.
Smash cut to 18 years later the water proof interior lining had all but completely flaked off and the drawstring channel tore in such a way that it was time to just call it quits.
That bag survived through 4 years of high school, 4 more of university, 200+ (maybe twice more) days of real backwoods camping, at least 500 fishing and hunting trips, 4 continents, and two kids of my own.
It was a very sad day when I finally had to admit it was time to put that old bag down to rest, but I didn't even think twice about where I was going to replace it from.
You can absolutely find better deals elsewhere, but I find once I get my ~10% back at the end of the year, it all averages out.
And anyway, I like supporting such a consumer (member?)-friendly company, and their return policy is top notch. I don't think twice about returning crap gear, and they don't think twice about accepting it -- and it feels like it benefits all of the members, because it feels like they care about my complaints and they likely won't sell the same junk for much longer. Whereas it feels like other stores will just sell whatever makes money.
Yeah, that's what's great about the company. How many companies can you say "they cost a little bit more, but I like them so much that I'm willing to pay it" about? I can count like 3. It's a testament to how awesome they are.
The only other company I can think of where I don't mind spending more for the quality is Bates boots. They consistently outperform all of the other brands that I've tried. They are super durable, and they have a boot for almost any use. They're also one of the few boot companies that have a soft-toe and steel/composite toe offering for almost every model.
Except for the insane prices for everything, sure. It's great for people with money to burn, but it's definitely not a good place to shop if you're into outdoor activities and not rich.
Where do you recommend shopping for outdoors gear that offers a significantly better value than REI? The gear at REI is not cheap, for sure, but it's also high quality. You can get cheaper gear at big box stores and discounters, but it will also fall apart more quickly, often negating the lower price.
When shopping for gear, I look around and check Backcountry.com, Moosejaw, and other retailers, and on average, REI's prices are not out of line with those other shops. And, of course, if you pay full price for something at REI, you get 10% back as a dividend at the end of the year, and REI's return policy is very generous.
A lot of mountaineering gear costs a lot, but lasts for a really long time. It's like buying a car in some ways. So your go-to solution should be to buy used.
There's no shortage of people who bought an $800 backpack along with $2000 of other gear, who thought they'd be using them regularly, who later find out that they made a significant investment in a hobby they don't care much about.
Unless you're swimming in money buying gear from those people should be your first choice.
Knowing what to buy is also a huge factor. E.g. the market for backpacks is a bit like the market for racing bikes. You can easily end up spending 3-4x what you actually need because you're convinced that you need the latest & greatest. A bit like the weekend warriors who buy $4000 carbon fiber racing bikes to shave of a couple of kilos, which, unless you're competing, is a complete waste of money.
> A bit like the weekend warriors who buy $4000 carbon fiber racing bikes to shave of a couple of kilos, which, unless you're competing, is a complete waste of money.
Heh, As a cyclist I see that a lot, I ride a Carbon Felt Z6 2012 which cost me £768 new (about half what it cost originally here) when the 2013's came out.
I regulary ride with people who spent 5-8 times that on their bikes and go on about the weight savings (for reference my bike is often the same weight or at most 1/2lbs heavier), when I got the bike I was 245lbs, these days I'm 185lbs, the people with the 5 grand bikes are often a stone or two overweight...in terms of RoI skipping the cake would have been the way for them to go ;).
You know there are climbing gyms where you're using both dynamic ropes & carabiners used by thousands of people before you? Those places aren't death traps.
Ditto mountaineering tours etc. for newbies that usually have every incentive not to report if they damage some of the equipment.
Carabiners, ropes & the like are tested when they're manufactured. Any damage likely to damage their structural integrity is usually going to be quite obvious. E.g. the carabiner won't close, or the rope will look like shit (although puncturing the core of a rope with crampons can be a subtle exception).
All other things being equal you're likely to be better off with brand new equipment, but you're also probably way better with used equipment where you spent that extra $500 you saved on some safety course & expert instruction, than skipping that and buying a brand new rope & carabiners.
Failing to properly secure a knot to a used carabiner is a way more likely cause of death than the carabiner itself failing.
I agree with you on metal hardware--if it looks and works fine, it probably is.
It's hard to evaluate a climbing rope by visually inspecting it, though. The strength depends primarily on the core strands, which are hidden away behind the sheath. Chemical damage is not as visible as people assume it is.
It's especially hard for lead ropes, because every significant fall takes some the elasticity out of the core. A rope can look perfectly fine even if it is no longer capable of absorbing a lead fall. The danger here isn't so much that the rope will break, but that the lack of stretch will overload your pro, your body, or potentially even the anchor.
So I would be very hesitant to buy a lead rope used, unless you really know and trust the person. Top-roping should be fine because the fall factor is so low. You can top rope with static cord if you're attentive to the belay.
Exactly - how many falls has that rope / nut / etc. taken? Obviously some things are not dangerous used (chalk bag, crash pad), but I agree completely, don't bargain-shop for things that your life depends on.
> A lot of mountaineering gear costs a lot, but lasts for a really long time.
Precisely. REI has some stuff which is wildly overpriced - I wouldn't buy hiking shorts there. But if I'm buying climbing gear, no one will sell it cheap anywhere. REI dividends and a good warranty make the competitive, because I'm expecting to keep the gear for a decade or more.
They changed the return policy on climbing gear to be much shorter. The gear coop has pretty good climbing deals and a good selection and a lifetime return policy(iirc) just don't abuse it.
Edit not lifetime anymore. Both places are one year.
That's a bit odd - I wonder if it's just a sanitation issue?
Certainly no load-bearing climbing gear is ever returnable. Harnesses, ropes, draws, and pro aren't (and shouldn't be) returnable or resalable ever. I assume helmets can't be either.
But non-safety gear like chalk bags can be returned, and I'm surprised they won't take back approach shoes since they aren't even used on a wall.
They took back climbing harness a friend bought two years ago but told them that even though it's in their right to return, they would basically destroy/dispose of the harness since it's a critical safety equipment. Other stuff goes to the Garage sales.
I think it depends on what you're getting. REI is very pricy for common or short-lifespan gear like hiking shorts - you can do much better with Backcountry or Sierra Trading Post. But for quality, long-lived gear (rope, tents, etc) you're not going to find it cheap anywhere at all.
I usually end up comparing REI with Moosejaw + Activejunky, and it's a tossup which one will be cheaper.
(If you haven't tried Activejunky, do. It's usually another 5-15% off while shopping through other sites.)
Their REI-branded stuff is a pretty good value and has consistently become better and better winning several awards annually in Backpacker's magazines Gear of the Year. It used to just be the tent (Half Dome) that was well regarded but I think this year, both the tents, their backpacking packs, and down sleeping bags are considered some of the best gear and usually 20-30% cheaper than the bigger name brands that they also sell.
Also, I generally use my 20% member's coupon for things that never go on sale such as bear canisters and climbing shoes.
For budget outdoor enthusiasts, I would recommend Walmart's Ozark Trail brand. You can find a sub-4lb backpacking tent for $30 on sale (which is still twice as heavy as a high end backpacking tent but costs $30 vs. $300). They put out a lot of decent gear but never the lightest or the most durable.
If you want better quality gear but only clearance/outlet, try sierratradingpost - basically the TJMaxx of outdoor gear.
I have a Traverse day pack that is > 8 years old that has been used almost everyday. I don't remember it being too expensive, and the quality has been nothing short of amazing. I wish every zipper I own worked as well as they have on this pack.
I do think REI's pretty expensive, but it's midrange (see below).
If you do a lot of backpacking, you find you don't really need much specialized gear anyway -- in fact you probably have a lot of what you need lying around the house already. So the overall cost isn't that high. So it was worth buying a very expensive winter sleeping bag for sub-zero conditions, but for the summer I don't even need a bag at all. I wear the same hiking boots for any long walk.
When I say REI is "midrange": they are a great place to get basic stuff (I found the outdoors stuff at Dick's or Bass Pro to me cheap but mostly worthless crap). After the rebate, prices aren't bad and stuff tends to last a long time. They don't sell the super high end stuff (custom boots or sleeping bags) but the market for that is vanishingly small anyway, and like I said, typically you only need one or two pieces of expensive gear.
My locally-owned discount camping place (Redwood Trading Post in Redwood City) is my go-to just because it's locally owned, but they have some clunkers (e.g. their ropes).
One thing I've noticed is that REI do stock a lot of gimmicks (outdoor themed playing cards, heavy stoves for car camping, cheap knives) which I assume are the bulk of their profits. I haven't seen that stuff crowd out the "real" gear. Cabellas used to have really good gear too, but they couldn't make a go of it and the crud-laden Bass Pro bought them so we'll see what happens.
Oh, and another note on "midrange": I am referring specifically to backpacking, cycling and skiing (though I don't buy ski/snowshoe gear there). I am intimidated by the rock climbing gear and have no way of knowing if it is crap or ultra-high end.
Insane? Most prices on their non-house-brand gear are about what you'll find anywhere else at retail, so a chunk more expensive than you can find online. Once you get your ~10% dividend back at the end of the year, it pretty much makes up the difference vs shopping online.
Especially if you EVER have to return anything or rely on customer service. Unless your time is worth nothing...
I absolutely don't buy everything there, but your time is often better spent doing that than bargain hunting.
I've been a member of the Park Slope Food Coop for about a year. We have 16,000 co-owners, do about $50MM / year in revenue; and have the freshest, most local and affordable food in NYC.
You have to work 2:45 hour per month (I do childcare), and we have monthly GA meetings to vote on things.
We also have a fund / capital, training, and even labor available for others who want to start cooperative grocery stores in their area.
Haha. That's the "get everyone to look in the same direction, aren't we a lovely family, infesting a take more ownership than you take shares" story that private business tells. In the end the ones making equity investments in the business walk away with the surplus (both in profit and in valuation). :)
I think coops are more suitable for that "change the world" while being "revolutionary" story. In fact many anarchists (and market socialists, and mutualists) envision a big coop sector to democratize work life. I think it's pretty revolutionary in that way. Noam Chomsky and Murray Bookchin promote these ideas.
It definitely surprises me that with all the talk of "following your passion" and "changing the world", we see pretty much 0 innovation in HOW a company works/is owned/etc. Instead all innovation is focused at the product level.
I don't think there's anything wrong with caring about money, in fact I think it's a mistake not to care about money in a system that revolves around money. However, listening to people tell me how "passionate they are about 'X'" when in reality they are only passionate about making money is one my biggest pet peeves.
I would imagine it comes down to having the initial capital to start such a venture. Those with the capital retain ownership and reap the future returns.
If there was a way coops could raise significant funds to start say a big box chain store, we might see more of them. I don't think small business loans quite cut it here.
If this is true, I wonder if this is inherent in the way markets work, or a result of the way we (government, society, whatever) have structured things.
I think it's inherent in the way markets work, or more specifically, how people operate in a mostly free market.
On the one hand, the market remains this way where people with money are more easily able to make large sums of money through investment, by making their money do the work. The system in this sense is self-perpetuating, but strictly speaking, doesn't have to be this way.
On the other hand, as a thought experiment, imagine a magic wand was waved and all capital and resources were evenly distributed across the national or even global population. The world would still be left with an inequality of people's ability to earn each others money. Those with good health, savvy business sense, in-demand skills, and knowledge of production would quickly start down the path of quickly earning, while others are left only spending. I don't think it would take very long to end up right back where we are today.
I guess it depends on how you look at it. I think technically the "dividend" is a refund on an overpayment. Which is kind of like them saying, "Hey, why don't you give us money as membership fee and and we'll give you a 10% discount. Then you're going to overpay on all your goods by 10%. And we're going to hold on to that money, interest-free for you for like a year or whatever, but eventually we'll give it back."
Or REI could just charge lower prices... But hey, if you like giving them a free loan for most of the year so you can get excited to receive it back then by all means.
I wish we had 'Decathlon' in the US. It's kind of similar to REI, but the gear is much cheaper, and in some cases of more modest quality (but still quite functional rather than 'cheap crap'). This is a great tradeoff to make if you're pretty casual about this or that activity and not ready to invest the big bucks.
I found their stuff to be a bit better than the 'cheap outdoor stuff' places in the US. It's not super high quality, but it seems to get the job done and not fall apart.
REI usually has fantastic gear good enough to not have to seek out specialty stores. Just one example: I got a better, rugged water bottle (7 gal) for less that the cost of the crappy (3 gal) one offered by the local water store. If you needed an ultracompact sleeping-bag and tent for protesting in North Dakota winters, REI probably carries it. Or climbing gear. Or a titanium spork.
The electrician's coil is very nice, especially the quick unraveling. I always re-tie survival bracelets into these kinds of braids - I dunno who has five minutes to untie their regular-braid survival bracelets in case of emergency.
It's a shame your otherwise interesting point got sidetracked by a regional disagreement of definitions. Let's get back on track.
That was my first thought too. Just think about living to 107. That would mean she was born in (or around) 1910. A child during WW1, before cars were commonplace; a young adult during the great depression; an adult during WW2; the expansion of suburbs; through Vietnam, the computer revolution of the 80s, the Internet in the 90s... it must be amazing to observe that kind of time span first hand. A lot happens in a century.
I've lived in California for 27 of my 41 years, about equally split between SoCal and Northern California, and I have never heard someone call a woman 'dude' without it being a mistake or a joke.
The Atlantic notes that women use "dude" to address other women[1]. I'm not from California, and I'd agree that the most typical usage seems to be towards men, but I have heard women refer to other women as "dude".
There are two distinct uses of "dude". One is as an exclamation (not a form of address). "Dude, I'd never do that" is the approximate example in the article, and a woman might say that to another woman. She is not calling the other woman a dude. Test this claim by trying the following: "Man, I'd never do that." "Gentleman, I'd never do that." "Fellow, I'd never do that." etc. The use of "man" and "dude" as an exclamation has made it into everyday conversation. "Man that sucks!" has become an expression of dismay devoid of gender and indeed not even directed at any particular human.
Then there is the use of "dude" to refer to a specific person (singular). This is a very rare use of "dude" in reference a woman, and usually is used as commentary rather than a literal descriptor, or ironically. "She's such a dude." It is definitely making a comment on gender or stereotypes.
I would be very confused if you referred to me as a dude in everyday conversation, wondering what you were trying to say. On the other hand, I did recently say about myself, "I'm such a dude" when making a comment about my approach to an unfortunately often-gender-stereotyped activity, housekeeping.
