Dive Brief:

• Ahead of its initial public offering, Allbirds is expanding its store footprint. 
• The DTC footwear brand on Thursday announced it opened its first store in Denver, marking its 34th location globally, according to a press release.
• The brand's sustainability focus comes through in the 2,904-square-foot store: Displays highlight the natural materials Allbirds uses in its products, wooden chairs and shelves are used around the space and signage for each product's carbon footprint is displayed.

Dive Insight:

Just ahead of its public market debut, Allbirds is continuing its spree of opening new stores.

Expanding its physical footprint is one pillar in the growth strategy the DTC brand laid out in its IPO filing in August, which also included deepening its apparel and footwear assortment to include more casual, performance and outdoor offerings.

As many publicly traded DTC brands have revealed in recent years, becoming profitable isn't an easy feat. Allbirds itself in its S-1 filing showed that while revenues grew to $219 million in 2020 from $194 million in 2019, its net loss rose as well to $25.9 million from $14.5 million in the year-ago period. 

DTC brands have begun to lean on physical stores to help offset customer acquisition costs, which oftentimes come at the expense of profitability.

Over the last several months, Allbirds has opened new stores in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago and the Boston area. But Allbirds' new Denver store may be following the direction of other brands.

While digitally native brands have historically moved into popular shopping neighborhoods, like New York's SoHo and Boston's Seaport for their first locations, areas in Colorado appear to be gaining popularity as secondary locations. Vuori's first store outside of California is in Boulder, Colorado, while UpWest — Express' DTC brand — opened a location in Denver earlier this year.