A DNB Lesson: Why Warby Parker's Physical Stores Worked and Allbirds' Didn't

One Playbook, Two Outcomes

Warby Parker and Allbirds, two of the most celebrated digitally native brands of the 2010s, followed similar playbooks. Each built a devoted online following around a disruptively simple offer – Warby Parker's stylish frames that didn’t break the bank, Allbirds' $95 Wool Runner – and then moved into physical retail to reach new customers, build awareness, and lower acquisition costs. 

But now, in mid-2026, the two brands sit at opposite ends of the outcome spectrum. Warby Parker posted its first full year of net profit in 2025 and ended the second quarter of 2026 with 352 stores – with management seeing long-term potential for more than 900. The company has also sustained consistent year-over-year (YoY) traffic growth, with monthly visits up 19.1% YoY in July 2026.

Allbirds, meanwhile, saw its explosive early growth give way to declining visits in early 2024. The brand closed its remaining full-price U.S. stores in early 2026 – and by June, the footwear brand had been sold, while the remaining public company renamed itself Smartbird and pivoted to AI infrastructure. It was a dramatic reversal for a company whose market value had reached $4.1 billion on its first day of trading less than five years earlier.

What explains the diverging outcomes of two DNBs that appeared, on the surface, to run the same play? We dove into the data to find out.

Discipline Built for Physical Stores

For a digitally native brand making its first move offline, the learning curve can be steep. The attributes that drive online growth – performance marketing, rapid iteration, a hero product or another single disruption – do not automatically translate into effective physical retail. Instead, brick-and-mortar success requires a different kind of discipline: creating experiences that drive repeat visitation, evaluating locations against trade area characteristics, and monitoring performance closely enough to know whether each door earns its keep.

And plotting visits and revenue on the same timeline for Warby Parker and Allbirds throws the divergence between the two brands into sharp relief.

Warby Parker showed the necessary discipline early on, expanding market by market against defensible store economics – while giving customers compelling reasons for repeat visits. Eye exams turned stores into vision-care destinations, while multi-pair and first-order contact lens discounts created additional purchase occasions. Omnichannel tools like buy-online-pick-up-in-store also kept the physical and digital sides of the business feeding each other. And foot traffic rose alongside revenue, suggesting that the store network was successfully expanding the business. 

Allbirds' expansion, by contrast, followed a boom-and-bust curve. Foot traffic surged to a peak 407.1% above 2021 levels in 2023, just as net revenue began moving the opposite way – down 8.4% from 2021 levels by 2023 and 45.1% by 2025. New locations appeared to be shifting demand rather than creating it, while product extensions failed to generate enough incremental sales. And by 2024, the company began closing stores. 

A More Locally Embedded Audience

Location analytics also show that Warby Parker was more successful at attracting a broader, locally embedded audience than Allbirds. 

Though both brands skewed upscale, Allbirds drew wealthier shoppers: In 2025, the median household income of its captured market was 63% above the nationwide baseline compared to 38% for Warby Parker. And more than half of Allbirds’ visits came from more than 10 miles away, compared with just 36.2% for Warby Parker.

Relying so heavily on highly affluent visitors traveling from farther afield can make traffic more fragile, particularly as novelty fades. A more locally embedded customer base, by contrast – still affluent, but somewhat more reflective of the general public – is better positioned to generate the repeat visits that help sustain store performance over time.

What Separates the DNBs That Crack Physical Retail

For DNBs, the lesson is that opening stores is only the first step. The harder task is making each location additive to the business – bringing in new customers, creating repeat demand, and strengthening the link between online and offline channels. Warby Parker succeeded in doing that; Allbirds scaled a narrow, premium, low-frequency proposition beyond what physical demand could sustain.

For more data-driven retail analyses, visit Placer.ai/anchor.