Allbirds opens two new UK spaces as London is key growth city

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Aug 23, 2022

Sustainability-focused shoe brand Allbirds is continuing to grow its retail footprint in the UK and this week launched in Selfridges, as well as preparing to open a store on the King’s Road on 24 August.

These moves come after it said that for Q2 this year, it acquired more new customers in London than in any other metropolitan area outside of New York City. 

It’s a signal that consumers in the UK, and especially in the London region, are buying into its message about sustainability, as well as liking its products.

The brand has now surpassed $1 billion in lifetime net revenue and the new openings should add more cash to that tally.

The Selfridges debut is Allbirds' first UK concession and it carries women’s popular shoes, including hero silhouettes and key styles. 

Selfridges has also selected it as a ‘Project Earth brand’ and it will be labelled within the retailer’s ‘For Nature’ category that highlights products made using environmentally certified materials, and processes that reduce pollution and waste. 

Its space in the store “sets out to replicate the feeling of an Allbirds shoe, focusing on natural materials and a centrepiece using raw materials aiming to educate the Selfridges consumer about the innovation behind each product”. 

Meanwhile, the King’s Road opening will be the brand’s third London store and only its fifth in Europe. 

The store uses sustainably sourced materials to display a wide range of men's and women's products and the company said it has “an aim to demystify conscious consumption”, which means “touchpoints call attention to Allbirds’s hero natural materials such as merino wool, sugarcane and eucalyptus tree fibre”. As a new feature, display plinths will also “deconstruct iconic silhouettes to illustrate a ‘start to finish’ process of how these materials are used to craft their footwear”. 

The company added that as well as its store openings, it’s continuing to focus on its base of omnichannel customers “who spend around 1.5 times more than single-channel repeat customers and now comprise approximately 15% of their repeat customer base”.