Thrive Themes Black Friday Is “Un-Black” Friday

Thrive Themes is renowned for not offering Black Friday discounts. It doesn't do Cyber Monday, nor any other seasonal discounts. There are several reasons for this, and the company is doing something else instead. I think it's an excellent idea and love this approach.

Why Thrive Doesn't Offer Seasonal Discounts

Think about it, seasonal sales rule us consumers like crazy. Many of us would continually spend great amount of time in working out whether to buy now or wait until the next sale. The time to anticipate, and the stress of rushing in as soon as the sale starts. We may be saving money but in exchange for sacrificing a quality of life there.

The whole idea of seasonal sale is a great cause of procrastination too. Just how often can we get to buy something we really wanted at the sale? Instead of grabbing other stuff unexpectedly just because they're at bargain prices? Seasonal sales can actually encourage some people to procrastinate from buying. "Why jump on this sale when the next one might be even cheaper?", Thrive points that out. The reasons why it doesn't offer Black Friday discounts are;

• Not fair for the rest of year's customers - They want to treat their customers fairly, i.e. they don't believe in overpricing their products the rest of the year.
• It means their products are already at a bargain price.
• Thrive's "rapid implementation" approach - continuously improve the quality of their products according to WordPress updates and user feedbacks. Thrive Themes and Architect users receive free updates almost once every month, for example.
• For that reason, value of their products increases over time. While many retailers use seasonal sales to get rid of the current models before releasing the new models, it's never the case for the Thrive.

Kiva Loans

Instead, Thrive Themes loans 50% of revenue generated on Black Friday to a charity organization called Kiva. It's not a donation, but it's a loan - Kiva's activity is unique. It provides a loan to individual entrepreneurs who are in need of capital. These individuals are from over 80 countries across the world, mostly developing countries but also includes USA. Kiva works as an intermediary and loan money on lenders' behalf.

Anyone can become a lender and loan as little as $25 via PayPal. The borrowers may repay their loan with or without interest, depending how it was arranged with their local agent (Kiva's "Field Partner"). But you as a lender or Kiva will never receive an interest on repayments. The interest will be used towards the Field Partners' running costs.

How Kiva works can be viewed here in detail.

"UnBlackFriday" For Good Cause

So far Thrive Themes has loaned around $14,000 to these entrepreneurs via Kiva since 2017, the 50% of the revenue on Black Fridays. Shane Melaugh (co-founder and the CEO) says;

"We believe that the world is a better place if there were more small individuals and small groups doing things in the world, bringing value to small local communities, sustaining themselves that way."

By the way the loans are not tax efficient for a company - meaning if a company make donations to registered charity groups, that amount can be deducted from the corporation tax. But that's not the case with charity loans. Which means I think that, Thrive loans money to Kiva, and still pays the full tax on their annual profit to the local authority, so they're doing a great thing there in my opinion!

So to summarise the UnBlackFriday deal... Thrive Themes does not offer discounts. If you choose to buy any of the Thrive products on Black Friday, you'll just pay the same price as any other times of the year. But Thrive uses 50% of it for a good cause. I think it's a respectable approach, and I hope you agree.