Equipment | This pair of wool shoes can even machine wash!
Allbirds is a brand of eco-friendly footwear e-commerce that was founded in San Francisco in March this year. Point into its official website, you can only find 5 colors of the same shoes in the two categories of men's and women's shoes, the price is 95 US dollars, in addition to no other product.
However, it sold one month of inventory in the first week of the line and received seed financing of $2.7 million. The investors are Dave Gilboa, CEO of Warby Parker, in addition to the two venture capital agencies Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Great Oaks Venture Capital.
If there is anything special about this pair of shoes called “Wool Runnerâ€, it’s actually simple: comfortable, minimalist, and environmentally friendly. It sells for $95. The whole shoe is a solid color. The Logo is only marked on the insole. Weight and socks are similar, except that the laces are polyester, and the rest are natural materials: the main body is woven from merino wool with a diameter of only 16 microns, and the insole material is from castor beans. Because of the good sweat absorption of these materials, you can wear them directly and put them directly into the washing machine.
The official website confidently marked the 30-day free return promise. Several media editors who tried to pass it said that this can be ignored - Time magazine called it "the most comfortable shoe in the world" and Wired gave it. 9 points out of 10 reviews. In short, this round of media campaign made Allbirds popular.
Five years ago, Tim Brown, founder of Allbirds, was a member of the New Zealand national football team. Because he was often sponsored by various brands such as Nike, he noticed that casual shoes that are worn everyday have little substantive innovation in design or material innovation compared to professional sports shoes and street fashion brands. "It's just putting the ordinary sneakers made in Vietnam on the market and relying on celebrity marketing."
What to do after retirement is a problem that every athlete has to face. After participating in the final World Cup of his professional career in 2010, Brown simply applied for a prize from the New Zealand Wool Trade Association, began researching skin-friendly and durable shoes, and went to the London School of Economics to study business management. Sneakers business prepares.
After graduating in 2014, he released the “Wool Runners†sneaker crowdfunding plan on Kickstarter. The project raised $120,000 within a week. Brown began to consider the supply chain issues and found a 150-year-old weaving workshop on the outskirts of Milan.
Joey Zwillinger, another founder of Allbirds, also met and joined Brown after crowdfunding. Zwillinger was a biotech engineer who invented a technology that converts algae into durable spandex and uses it to make skateboards. However, this skateboard product did not succeed because "too much emphasis on environmental protection, but not enough practicality."
“You really may be interested in talking to your customers about sustainability and environmental protection, but once they buy it, they will only choose products that are truly cost-effective.â€
Zwillinger brought this experience to the marketing of Allbirds. You will not see too much emphasis on environmental protection in your copy of the official website. The core information is about the performance of this shoe, such as sweat absorption, comfort, light wear, machine wash, etc. Instead, customers can better understand the concept of “moral fashion†in their use: for example, the cartons used for express delivery are specially designed to use 40% less material than normal cartons; returned shoes will be donated to charity opportunity Soles4Souls.
From a business model perspective, Allbirds is similar to the DTC network direct selling brands such as Warby Parker and Everlane, emphasizing quality, minimalist design, and transparent production. Brown's original target consumer is also highly consistent with Everlane, who is "26-34 years old, who cares about the production process and likes people who are simple and have no obvious brand identity products." However, the actual consumer group is much wider than Brown thought, and the proportion of men and women is very balanced, which is exactly 1:1.
"People who love fabrics will also like our products. This makes the imagination bigger."
Brown therefore plans to introduce more product types in the future, such as boat shoes and lazy shoes. "We will not only make wool materials. We are studying other natural materials that have been neglected and what innovations we have done - so we will move to the Bay Area."
Topics, Pics from businessinsider.com, huffingtonpost.com, fashionista.com
Source: Curiosity Daily
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