REI CEO Reddit IAMA – It Went Poorly..

[Lane E.]

Hi Guys, Saw the IAMA this morning and thought I would share, definitely makes me second guess whether I will be shopping at REI ever again. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3scce7/i_am_jerry_stritzke_ceo_of_rei_and_were_closing/ I saw there was another thread about REI closing on Black Friday, but wanted to start another one as this is a slightly new topic.

[Greg Mihalik]

CEO Stritzke: "Wow. It looks like this AMA really took off last night. I appreciate the honest dialogue here and believe me when I say I'm listening. When I signed off yesterday at 6PM PST, this AMA only had 300 comments and I did my best to make sure all the top questions were answered (as well as some fun and obscure questions). We knew that coming into reddit was a new frontier for us with a certain amount of risk, but I want you to know we're committed to this community and to being honest about REI. I see a lot of value in hearing from our employees and members in a candid and anonymous setting like this. Thank you for the good conversation and holding us accountable." Currently things don't sound good. What counts though is IF this results in change. Only time will tell. There is a lot to wade through in the Reddit thread. At the top, click on "Stritzke" to see his replies (and infer the question) [Not a fanboy, just want to keep keep it even.]

[Billy Ray]

A lot of employee whining that does not take into account the economic realities of being in a business like REI… things are ALWAYS more complicated that the 'first take'… like the people here on BPL who go in and look at things at REI and then go home an order a knock-off from a Chinese company on the internet at half the price… or the people here on BPL who buy things at REI, use them for 11 months and then return them for full refund… While it is nice thought to pay employees more and give them more benefits, there are some economic realities that few employees (or people on this BPL site) take into consideration… There are few businesses that have a unique enough product that they can charge what they want and pay employees anything without considering market limitations… also, some of this stuff is spin form a certain point of view… there are other points of view…. like the guy that complained about part time… I bet a ton of the employees LOVE working part time… a lot of these employees are young and don't have a lot of bills to pay and just want part time work so they can go on more backpack trips, etc… and many of them don't care about the benefits anyway (though maybe they should)… My understanding is there are people waiting in line to work at REI… must be something good for them or they wouldn't just sayin'… billy

[Brendan Swihart]

Some employee whining is expected but there are pretty clearly some bigger issues here…If you took 20 random retail CEOs to do AMAs I don't think they'd all be disasters like this…

[Ian]

This one jumped out at me: "Hello Jerry, I am an Employee of the Seattle Flagship store. I have worked CS for about a year now and have realized something about how managers act when requested by a customer if what I have to say isn't satisfactory. What I am getting at is the manger will most always make an exception and say an item is ok to return even after I've explained the return policy to the customer saying its beyond what I can do. This happens all the time and my thinking is the managers don't want to get a strike or a talking to. I heard through the grapevine that if a customer calls a store and calls out the manager who denied their return that this info goes straight to you. Like I said, many times I have called for a manager to back me up and they simply say return the item. It makes me look foolish and makes me hesitant to call my manager in the first place. My question to you would be are managers that are called out brought to your attention ASAP and if so how come and how do you think this helps in the long run? permalink" Edit: Oh and I saw "idgaf" used as an acronym for the first time and I didn't even have to google to figure out what it meant. Score!

[Lane E.]

Honestly I didn't read all the comments, however the ones I did read from the various employees all, more or less, noted the same issues and none them really included their paid salary (as an issue) which makes part of your comment moot. They are noting that they are pressured to sell memberships and when their managers (or other higher-ups) determine they are under performing in the volume of memberships they are selling their hours are cut until the port they are forced to quit. That said, there was at least one employee comment noting he and several colleagues were having their hours cut while the REI store was constantly hiring new employees which in turn backs their claim that their hours were cut due to lack of membership sold performance. Personally I find this mentality completely asinine. As an REI member who has spent more money than my wallet can afford at REI I find it to be a complete slap in the face. I chose to shop REI because they are to be educating me on the proper purchases when in reality it would appear no matter how much the employee wants to do so as I am already a member I might as well be chopped liver because they are going to prioritize non-members over those of us whom are paying our dues…that's crap. So why should I buy from REI? If I am unable to receive the guidance on which items to buy I might as well grab everything from amazon and save myself some money in process. Amazon has an goof return policy, free shipping and amazing customer service for when things go wrong. I won't be receiving buying advice, but apparently the advice you get from REI is next to useless in the first place so… /end rant

[Billy Ray]

"Personally I find this mentality completely asinine." All of this fuss is being based on hearsay from a couple of disgruntled employees… Not exactly an objective study… or any attempt to be fair and impartial in your judgements… This entire thread is just dumb… hearsay, gossip, lynch mob mentality… billy

[Lane E.]

Honestly, that may certainly be true to some extent, but their CEO did little to nothing to stem that judgement. Most of the employee questions (most weren't even complaints, just honest questions) were upvoted highly yet received no responses or received PR sanitized versions which carry little meaning. You don't do an iAMA unless you are going to get honest with the community and here is a prime example of a CEO trying to peddle his "closed black friday" PR stunt, but instead ran head long into an ice berg and didn't even have the common courtesy to deploy a life boat or two.

[Billy Ray]

All speculation. We don't know if the CEO will respond or not… not everything happens fast. And we don't know if these very few employee comments… probably less than one hundredth of one percent of their employees is representative or not or even just bogus lies possibly. Pouring from the empty into the void… Billy

[Justin Baker]

Don't buy retail. A lot of the stuff you can find at REI you can find at a similar price and higher quality from UL cottage makers so long as you aren't looking at anything super fancy like cuben fiber. The retail products are made overseas using budget products, shipped to the U.S. and the price is doubled when it hits the retail floor (50% wholesale markup is common with most items). This is why cottage products can be competitive in price. By avoiding retail you are giving money to small business owners instead of funneling money though corporations to rich share holders.

[Cayenne Redmonk]

I find it *very* hard to believe that the floor staff give two cents if you are a member or not. The only employee that can sell a membership is the cashier. Bob in camping, Sally in climbing, and Rodney in shoes don't sell memberships. They don't hand customers a card with their name on it to get the sale of a membership accounted to them. They don't ask customers to tell the cashier that Katy in kayaks helped you out. is your store different ?

[Matt Dirksen]

Unless things have changed recently, the floor staff always ask customers if they are a member or not. If they say no, they are handed a slip of paper (with the membership info on it.) On that slip is the employee's name. REI's employees all participate in selling memberships. While there is no financial gain associated with it, I do remember they would keep close tabs on how many memberships you sold. While I don't remember it being a major factor in performance reviews, I could see how some managers might associate "sales performance" with the number of memberships one sold. Since REI sales staff are not commissioned, managers don't have any "hard metrics" on an employees performance, other than personal observations or wether they showed up on time or not. Don't forget, most senior employees can easily identify seasoned outdoors folk, who have been members since the dawn of time, and so they know better than to ask if your are a member. Most "non-members" enter the store differently. ;>D

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