Nau Hear This: Portland Outdoor Company's Generosity Deserves Buzz

There's a fascinating article  in today's Oregonian  about Nau, a Portland-based green retailer of outdoor clothing. The business is generating local buzz because it's taking a different approach to branding. Unlike other outdoor clothing and sporting goods lines which tend to lean heavily on prominent logos and famous athletes, Nau is taking a novel approach by focusing on high-quality garments without logos that are sold online and through small storefront locations designed to promote online sales. The company also has an interesting blog called "The Thought Kitchen" which highlights the socially-responsible beliefs and interests of the company's principals.

Recently,  Nau announced that it has awarded $62,000 to charities in its first six months of operations in keeping with its pledge to grant five percent of all sales to nonprofits that customers have selected.  There are many companies which are trying to ride the wave of being a socially-responsible business. Yet, when one studies the details, there is oftentimes more sizzle than steak as many companies cap their total donations to nonprofits even thought they promote giving a fixed percentage of sales.

Kudos to Nau for living up to its donation pledge even though the company has yet to turn a profit. I hope that their generosity results in good press and widespread positive buzz because the company is giving far above the average for U.S. businesses. According to the annual Giving USA  Report by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, U.S. corporations on average donated 0.7 percent of their pretax profits, which is sales minus expenses, a much smaller figure than the overall sales number which Nau uses to determine its charity contributions.

Comments

[Mark Silver]

I love everything you said about them... plus they're local. So, I immediately checked out their website... and it sucks.

It's pretty. it's clever. It's a great concept. And it's hard to navigate around, you have to wait for the flash to load at many different points, and sometimes I clicked on items and it didn't work. It's not an easy way to shop.

I'm glad they've done so well in sales so far- but if they are going to turn a profit, which I hope they do, they need to make their website easier and faster to shop with. Especially if they are aiming for mostly online sales...

So many things to get right to make it work... I hope they do it...

[Patrick Galvin]

Mark,

Thanks for visiting and your excellent comments. In the Oregonian piece I linked to above, the reporter pointed out that Nau has struggled with its website. Apparently, they've had a falling out with their website design firm - in large part because their Flash applications don't integrate with their online sales ordering process. You're right that they'll need to dramatically improve their website functionality if they hope to succeed.

I went to the Nau clearance sale on the First Thursday in the Pearl a few days ago, and I was unimpressed with their clothing. The colors are drab, and it seems like there are real quality-control issues. The buttons on shirts and zippers on jackets just didn't seem to work well.

I want Nau to succeed but they need to make many improvements to ensure that they survive.

Patrick

[Marsha Hansen]

The drab colour line is influenced by Nau's, environmentally responsible concept. The brighter the colour the more toxic the pigmentation. Also, many of their clothing products are made from recycled materials, such as plastic bottles.

That being said, the zippers and buttons should work. Hopefully they're working on that.