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We are committed to offering products which are locally sourced and sustainably made as much as possible. We work with our suppliers and seek out new suppliers who can prove a commitment to a greener product offering and provide information about the manufacturing process and materials used. Because of this commitment, we are able to offer a Green Friday promotion in November that gives our customers the discounts they expect at this time of year without compromising our commitment to more sustainable practices.
What Does Green Friday Mean?
Green Friday is a movement which focuses on consumers and retailers offering more eco-conscious shopping. It's about greener shopping and not buying into the hype of Black Friday marketing. The date, the same as Black Friday, is meant to increase awareness of societies shopping habits and to focus on more sustainable practices. By focusing on more sustainable shopping practices, retailers and buyers alike, can work together to eliminate waste from impulse buying and buying in extra stock to feed the sale culture.
What is Black Friday?
Black Friday is a term used to describe the day after American Thanksgiving, now recognised as a day of sale activity and the official start to the holiday shopping season. This day marked the beginning of Christmas sales, and was meant to signify the sales that would ensure that a company would be ‘in the black’ for the financial year. Today Black Friday is a term used to describe the promotions for any period of time in November and the holiday shopping season may be being advertised as early as July.
What is the Environmental Impact of Increased Sales?
When looking at the environmental impact of a product being sold, we must consider the entire lifecycle of the product itself. From the manufacture, shipment from supplier to store, packaging that the item arrives to the store in, purchase and shipment of the product to consumer, further packaging and all of the waste as products are packaged, unpackaged, and then packaged and unpackaged again.
Why Do We Call It Green Friday?
We choose not to call our November promotion Black Friday because of the emphasis we put on the sustainability of the products that we offer. We focus on a small selection of products, including some of our bestsellers, and offer them at a reduced price for a set period in November to our customers. These products are not being sold to clear out, and we do not offer flash sales in incite impulse buying. We ensure that our promotions are available for a long enough period so that our customers can make informed decisions when purchasing, which we hope will reduce returns.
Our Green Friday collection changes every year, as does the number of products that we offer on sale, and the percentage discount that we choose to offer.
How Do We Choose Which Products We Include in The Sale?
When deciding which products are green enough for us to offer them as part of the Green Friday promotion, we look first at where the product is made, how it is made, and who is making it. We focus on products made in the UK, and then we look at whether we can offer products made by smaller artisans and makers, ensuring that we order early and often so as not to overwhelm them ahead of the busier selling season. We try to ensure that we are offering a selection of products that we will physically have in store so that we can manage shipping these items efficiently as we know that many items purchased in the sale will be intended as Christmas presents.
What is the Meaning of a Green Gift?
We classify a green gift as one which has been purchased with intent for use, and one which has been produced in an environmentally conscious manner. When both the seller and the buyer focus on items that have use and are sustainably produced, ensuring a long lifecycle for the product, this item may be considered green. We are committed to continuing to grow our products offering that is sustainably produced and locally made as much as possible.
By allowing for a longer sales period, we seek to eliminate impulse buying from our shop and hopefully to reduce the number of our products that end up discarded at the end of the holiday shopping season. By increasing the number of items that we offer on a print to order basis, we seek to ensure that we are not contributing to overproduction and eventual waste of unpurchased homeware and textiles.
We hope that you will choose to shop consciously during the holiday sales season, and please feed back to us any ways that we can be working to offer a greener product to you, our customer.
Contact us at shop@shakespearesglobe.com or leave us a comment, we would love to hear from you!
Sources:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-25153346
https://www.goodenergy.co.uk/blog/black-friday/
https://www.transportenvironment.org/articles/black-friday-exposes-dark-side-of-trucking
Written by Jennifer (eCommerce Manager)
