Allbirds to open second S.F. shoe store
Popular shoe seller to open 2nd S.F. store
Allbirds, whose wool and eucalyptus shoes have become ubiquitous on San Francisco streets, is all set to open its second location in the city late this summer.
Most of its sales are to online customers, but “we never set out to be just an e-commerce company,” said Joey Zwillinger, Allbirds co-founder and co-CEO. “Customers like to touch and feel stuff and you have to offer them a place to do it.”
The new store will be in Hayes Valley. The company’s other San Francisco location, open since May 2017, is in the Jackson Square neighborhood, where its headquarters is also located.
Allbirds was founded in San Francisco in December 2015 by Zwillinger, whose background is in industrial engineering, and Tim Brown, a British-born former professional soccer player from New Zealand, following a Kickstarter campaign that raised $120,000. The company’s name is a nod to its New Zealand heritage: “When man first arrived, there were all birds, no mam
mals,” the Allbirds website states.
Allbirds’ first product, sneakers for men and women made out of merino wool, began selling for $95 a pair in March 2016. New footwear lines since then include women’s flats and children’s shoes, called Smallbirds.
The company has raised a total of $77.5 million for a $1.4 billion valuation, and employs 250 people globally. In the two years that ended in March 2018, Zwillinger said, Allbirds sold a million pairs of shoes, for $100 million in revenue. He declined to comment on more recent revenue figures.
The company makes its shoes in two factories in South Korea. It plans to open two more stores in China by the end of this year, for a total of four stores there — if the U.S.China trade war does not get in the way.
“The tariffs create a lot of uncertainty for suppliers, brands, and for the Chinese consumer,” Zwillinger said. “I think anytime there is uncertainty, people clench up.”
The store at 425 Hayes St. will be Allbirds’ fifth U.S. location. It has stores in New York, Boston, Chicago and London, for a total of seven stores.
The 4,000-square-foot space that Allbirds is taking over in Hayes Valley currently houses Rand and Statler, a boutique clothing store started in 2011 by Catherine Chow and Corina Nurimba. The two also own Azalea, a clothing shop, and Welcome Stranger, a men’s apparel store in that neighborhood.
“We didn’t need that much space anymore,” Chow said of the Rand and Statler location. “I’m merging it (Rand and Statler) with my other business, Azalea, to create a stronger brand.”
Allbirds takes over the space the first week of June, but may not open the store until August or September.