Barbara’s gift and the Lululemon recyclable bag

It would ruin any mystery surrounding the birthday gift I’m giving her tonight. But my experience at Lululemon yesterday bears sharing with my audience of business owners and other interested consumers.

I selected a cool, reversible jacket as my gift to Barbara, brought it to the checkout counter and asked that it be wrapped as a gift. “We don’t have gift boxes. We’re a sustainable store,” I was told with just the slightest edge of superiority.

“Could you put a little tissue around it?” I asked, hoping for a touch of festivity in the unwrapping experience.

“No, we don’t believe in adding waste to the environment,” the salesgirl said. Actually, she didn’t say that exactly, but that was my interpretation of her repeating the ‘sustainable’ mantra in slightly different language.

Another jolt I got at that counter was the guestbook sign-in. Hoping to get the inside scoop on what towns other shoppers were visiting from, I was surprised to see that the pages consisted solely of names and email addresses. Clearly, paper, envelopes and stamps were not going to be used by this company.

I admire and support the philosophy and commitment of Lululemon, but have to confess to suffering a bit of culture shock, this being my first time interfacing with the reality of it.

I do plan to tie a (recyclable) ribbon around the cool, environmentally correct bag they did give me for transporting said gift to its recipient. I hope Barbara likes it. They did print out an extra gift receipt, just in case.