I decided not to spend any money with REI if I could help it, so I thought I was out of luck. But I remembered I stopped and made an "emergency sock purchase" while driving to a USPSA Area match last summer, so I spent just enough money to vote "withhold".

Withheld all votes.

Member, but I didn't spend any $$ there in 2018.

I received an interesting email last night.

It was from REI and the subject was "We Miss You".

I used to spend a good amount in their stores and I am a co-op member, but then I had kids and my purchases there went down a little, and then they pulled the crap with Vista, and I ceased shopping there.

The only question in the email was:

"Thinking about the next 12 months, would you say you are likely to engage with REI more, less or about the same compared to the previous 12 months? For example, this might include shopping (online or in-store), reading the Co-op journal, watching REI videos, following REI on social media, attending a REI class or adventure, etc."

I answered "engage less". This took me to an online survey and the next question asked if I cared to comment why I would engage less. I responded "I will no longer shop at REI due to your virtue signaling against my constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Your attempt to corporately bully Vista Outdoors was disgusting and you will see no more purchases from me or my family".

This wasn't the interesting part. The survey continued on in normal survey fashion until the end. At the end it said "the following questions are voluntary, but we'd really like to know". They began innocently enough with sex, age, income, then it got into race, gender identification (I thought I answered that with sex??) marital status or other relationship status etc. The final question was what I identify as politically. I answered independent which prompted a follow up question along the lines of "well if independent which party do you feel you align more with republican or democrat".

I think REI is suffering a little from their poorly thought out "wokeness" and spending a bunch on a survey to tell them what I believe anyone here could tell them. Don't piss off your customer base assholes...

I'm expecting a rebate on some CCI ammo that I purchased recently. It was a nice deal. Well, I got an email telling me that my rebate is approved and will be coming shortly. The email was from VISTA OUTDOOR! Do they own CCI/Speer too?

Thanks for the heads up! Withheld.

Hey REI!

How’s that “woke-to-broke” transition going for you? Man I used to spend a lot of money there, like THOUSANDS in a year…not so much the past few though.

Hoping your virture-signaling stunt of dropping CamelBak (you seriously dropped CamelBak?)paid off for you.

R EI loses $311M in 2023, second year in a row it failed to turn a profit

Oooh…maybe not so much. Bet you wish all of us who used to shop with you exclusively still did, eh?

PS: I see you sell CamelBak again, and most of the other stuff you made such a big deal about not selling anymore.

Brave strategy friend, brave strategy indeed.