For years, it brought to mind images of midnight lines snaking around big-box stores, tug-of-wars over the last flat-screen TV, and stampeding crowds immortalized in grainy YouTube videos. But as with many things in life, Black Friday has changed. It’s evolved from a single day of consumer madness into a weeks-long parade of promotions, stretching from mid-November through Cyber Monday.
In the Marine Corps, we had a term for this kind of mission drift: Mission Creep. A tightly scoped operation starts small but, over time, expands far beyond its original purpose. For Compass Coffee, our Black Friday journey began in 2020—a time when everything about business, and life in general, was unrecognizable.
That year, with our café sales down 85% overnight due to the pandemic, we shifted gears fast. People weren’t drinking less coffee; they were just drinking it at home. So we doubled down on e-commerce, building out our online store. It was scrappy, but it worked. When Black Friday rolled around, we offered discounts on our coffee, and it was a hit—sales tripled. It felt like a win during one of the hardest years of our lives.
Naturally, heading into Black Friday 2021, I was feeling pretty confident. Maybe even cocky. Spoiler alert: I shouldn’t have been.
Thanksgiving Night: The Fatal Email
To kick things off, we sent out an email Thanksgiving night with a big discount code: 50% off sitewide. It felt bold but manageable. After all, who doesn’t love a good Black Friday sale? Coffee lovers could stock up on their favorite blends, and maybe a few would throw in a grinder or brewing device.
What I didn’t know was that I had just fired the starting pistol on a marathon of chaos.
Friday Morning: The Call
I woke up on Black Friday morning feeling good. I was ready to drink some coffee and watch the sales numbers roll in. That fantasy evaporated when Chas, our COO, called me. And when I say “called,” I mean panicked.
“Michael,” he said, sounding like a man on the brink, “we have to shut down the website. Something’s wrong. There are too many orders. It’s insane.”
At first, I thought, Too many orders? That’s a good thing, right? But as I logged into our system and saw the data, I realized this wasn’t a victory lap—it was a disaster.
The Grinder Stampede
Our 50% off code had gone viral. Some discount-hunter website had picked it up and blasted it out to millions of deal-chasing superfans. But here’s the kicker: these weren’t Compass Coffee regulars stocking up on beans or trying our seasonal blends. No, these were randos out for a deal.
Baratza grinders, to be exact.
Not just one or two, either. People were ordering ten at a time. And at 50% off, we were actually selling them below cost. By the time we realized what was happening, we had sold thousands and thousands of grinders.
Black Friday hadn’t even hit its stride yet, and we were already drowning.
The Fallout
As the weekend unfolded, the situation went from bad to worse. First, there was the inventory problem. We didn’t have enough grinders in stock to fulfill even a fraction of the orders.
Second, there was the issue with Baratza. As it turns out, We violated the Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP) policy, which prevents retailers from selling their grinders below a certain price. It’s a safeguard designed to protect small businesses from being undercut by giants like Amazon.
The irony? We, a small business, had become the very undercutter that Baratza was trying to avoid. They were furious and immediately froze our account, which meant we couldn’t order more grinders to fill the flood of orders.
Lastly, there was the financial hit. Every grinder we did sell at 50% off was a loss. And these weren’t small losses—each grinder was hundreds of dollars.
We were stuck.
Making the Tough Calls
At this point, we had three options, none of them good:
- Cancel every Baratza order and deal with the customer backlash.
- Fulfill all the orders and absorb a massive financial loss.
- Fulfill some orders but not others, which felt like trying to play god with grinders.
In moments of chaos, I’ve always relied on the OODA loop—a decision-making framework I learned in the Marines. It stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It’s about assessing the situation, prioritizing, and moving forward with clarity.
Here’s how we applied it:
- Observe: Thousands of grinders sold overnight, creating a logistical and financial crisis.
- Orient: Our priorities were clear—protect our long-term customer relationships, preserve trust in the Compass brand, and, most importantly, ensure we survived this blunder.
- Decide: We would honor grinder orders for existing customers and for new customers who had also purchased coffee. This group had the highest potential to become repeat buyers. For everyone else, we would cancel their orders and refund them immediately.
- Act: We communicated the decision to customers clearly and worked overtime to fulfill the orders we could.
The Aftermath
The aftermath was nothing short of brutal. Our inventory systems were overwhelmed, our shipping process was manual at best, and customer complaints poured in as delays mounted. Ultimately, we decided to cancel the bulk grinder orders from deal-hunters who had clearly exploited the sale and refunded them with personalized emails explaining the situation.
For our loyal, longtime customers, we chose to fulfill their orders—even though we lost money on every single one—because maintaining their trust mattered more than the financial hit. By the end of December, the last grinder had shipped, the refunds were processed, and I had a few more gray hairs, but we made it through—humbled and wiser for the experience.
Lessons Learned
Black Friday 2021 was a humbling retailing experience. It wasn’t just a financial mess; it was a logistical nightmare and a gut check on how far we still had to go as a company.
But as painful as it was, that chaos forced us to grow. Now, we approach Black Friday with military precision—forecasting demand, refining systems, and preparing for every possible contingency.
That disaster could have crushed us, but instead, it made us stronger. And if I’ve learned anything in business (and in life), it’s that sometimes your biggest screw-ups turn out to be your best teachers.
So, here’s to Black Friday 2021: the year we sold a mountain of grinders, learned a lifetime of lessons, and somehow lived to tell the tale.
