Allbirds: Flying Towards New Opportunities

Allbirds rose to prominence during the direct-to-consumer (DTC) boom, quickly gaining a loyal following. However, the brand faced challenges in recent years and, in 2024, made a strategic pivot to optimize its store fleet and significantly rightsize its retail footprint. How has this shift impacted foot traffic? We took a closer look.

Rightsizing Efforts Paying Off

Allbirds closed almost a third of its U.S. store fleet in the first three quarters of 2024 – downsizing from 45 U.S. stores at the end of 2023 to 31 stores as of September 2024 – leading to expected declines in overall visit numbers. But as the number of Allbirds stores in operation fell, visits per location increased steadily – suggesting that the company is successfully consolidating its physical footprint and funneling visitors to its most successful stores.

California Dreamin’ 

While Allbirds has locations in a number of states across the country, its main stronghold remains its home state of California. And diving into the visit data reveals that its rightsizing strategy has paid off handsomely in the state, with YoY visits per location surging by 28.2% in January 2025 compared to 19.8% YoY growth nationwide, suggesting that Allbirds is successfully optimizing its footprint to focus on high-performing markets.

Concentrating Stores in Wealthier Areas

Rightsizing typically allows brands to focus on their best-performing markets – and it looks like Allbirds has succeeded in that regard. Between January 2024 and January 2025, the median household income (HHI) in Allbirds’ captured market rose from $108.5K to $125.6K. Similarly, the share of "Educated Urbanites" and "Ultra-Wealthy Families" Spatial.ai: PersonaLive segments increased, indicating that the brand is now catering to a more affluent visitor base that could help it weather economic uncertainties and wider retail challenges.

Sprinting Ahead

Allbirds’ strategic repositioning seems to be delivering some of the desired results. By focusing efforts on high-performance locations and the shopper experience, the brand is seeing higher visits per location and a more engaged customer base.

Will Allbirds continue to soar?

Visit Placer.ai to find out.