John and I lead an e-commerce business (John's Crazy Socks) and we have reached the week of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. One store yells louder than the next about their sales all in an effort to drive up revenue. None of it seems to create happiness. 

John’s Crazy Socks is like all e-commerce businesses: we want to drive up our revenue and we know how important this week is to our bottom line. Yet we are different. We are a father and son team that built a business on love. What we do here is personal for us. 

We are looking to build relationships, not simply chase transactions. We seek to create customer experiences and engage with our customers. After all, we have a mission to spread happiness and John says the keys to happiness are doing for others and gratitude. 

We eschew the traditional Black Friday and Cyber Monday frenzy and instead stage our annual Gratitude Week. It is a time to say thank you to our customers and to show our appreciation. We send gifts to our customers and John calls customers to thank them and makes personalized videos expressing his gratitude. We express our gratitude on our social media platforms. Black Friday and Cyber Monday will pass, but we will still be here nurturing connections with our customers. 

Our mission to spread happiness involves hiring people with differing abilities (more than half our colleagues have a differing ability) and showing the world what they can do. Our mission involves Giving Back - it is never enough to just sell stuff - we need to give back. We have now donated over $650,000 to our charity partners like Special Olympics New York, the National Down Syndrome Society and the Autism Society of America. 

Yet we can only do this because of the support of you, our customers. Yes, you get great socks (we have over 30,000 five-star reviews), but without you, we would be nowhere. 

John and I know that our customers help us spread happiness. You are helping us change the world. And we are forever grateful.