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Speaker 1: Now New Zealand's own All Birds, the sustainable footwear company

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Speaker 1: that was founded by the all white Tim Brown, has sold.

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Speaker 1: It's had a few tough years, went for about sixty

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Speaker 1: eight million dollars, was once valued at seven billion. The

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Speaker 1: Herald's senior business writer, Chris Keel has watched its rise

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Speaker 1: and fall and joins us now high Chris, are you

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Speaker 1: surprised that the value it went for.

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Speaker 2: No, It's been in a lot of trouble for a

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Speaker 2: couple of years. It's unfortunately almost been a textbook case

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Speaker 2: of things going wrong.

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Speaker 1: In what way?

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Speaker 2: I guess the overarching thing is that it's never been

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Speaker 2: able to make a profit. It's making sustainable shoes from

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Speaker 2: New Zealand marino wool and recycled materials, but not at

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Speaker 2: a sustainable price, or at least a commercially sustainable price.

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Speaker 2: It's just lost money quarter after quarter. And it's September quarter,

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Speaker 2: which turns out it will be the last one it

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Speaker 2: will ever report made a net loss of twenty million

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Speaker 2: of revenue of thirty three million. So just not a

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Speaker 2: sustainable business.

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Speaker 1: Model is part of the problem. Like could this potentially

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Speaker 1: have worked if they had more types of shoes, more

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Speaker 1: styles that were more fashionable, because it seems that was

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Speaker 1: also part of the problem.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a sort of a disaster front page

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Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal story for them in twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 2: It said All Birds were not older the it schue,

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Speaker 2: once upon a time, there's Barack Obama wearing them. Caught side,

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Speaker 2: there's Leonardo DiCaprio, all very celebrities snapped wearing them. But

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Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal said fashion had moved on, and it

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Speaker 2: quoted some pretty cruel tweets. One said the all Birds

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Speaker 2: were now sweet pants for your feet. Another one called

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Speaker 2: them crocs for tech bros. And also another sort of

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Speaker 2: quite damaging part of that article said when you tried

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Speaker 2: to go running in your all Birds in the rain,

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Speaker 2: they just fell apart.

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Speaker 1: Was was that? I just wondered if that was actually true.

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Speaker 1: Have you got a pair of All Birds?

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Speaker 2: I did buy some. You try running in the road,

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Speaker 2: Well I didn't. I had a colleague he did all

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Speaker 2: his All Birds that were that wet will smell didn't

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Speaker 2: smell too good. But I mean I interviewed Tim Brown

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Speaker 2: a couple of years ago when he was on a

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Speaker 2: trip home to visitors parents, and we met at All

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Speaker 2: Birds store on the Auckland water Front and at the

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Speaker 2: time he was trying to launch the All Birds tree Runners.

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Speaker 2: So obviously eggs or White and Phoenix Midfield are very

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Speaker 2: fat guy, so they were All Birds for quite hardcore runners.

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Speaker 2: And I was looking at the people in the shop

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Speaker 2: behind us and they looked more like they'd come off

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Speaker 2: the adjoining cruise ship. That the people who are actually

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Speaker 2: buying All Birds were middle aged people. Even had an

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Speaker 2: email today from Brian Fellow, the Heralds retired economics Colum

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Speaker 2: must He said he had bought six pairs to buy

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Speaker 2: another and it's just quite a demographic from.

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Speaker 1: What Kevin Milne loved them as well. He had he

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Speaker 1: had a thousand different different types, so it was for

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Speaker 1: a certain certain age bracket. Ay is part of the

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Speaker 1: problem also, it fel it feels like once they kind

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Speaker 1: of became cool, they just really expanded very quickly into

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Speaker 1: bricks and mortar and a lot of bricks and mortar.

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Speaker 1: Did they did they expand too fast? Maybe?

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Speaker 2: I think they did. Unfortunately they're bricks and mortar expansion

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Speaker 2: current sided with COVID, so that was bad timing. But

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Speaker 2: they never managed to to sort of recover from that.

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Speaker 2: They tried to expand into ath leisure, where, according to

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Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal, all Birds staff realized that a

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Speaker 2: whole shipment of leaguings were actually see through, so they

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Speaker 2: had to be dumped. That that just didn't work out,

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Speaker 2: And so then they tried to do a retro reboot

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Speaker 2: of their original shoes, but that didn't work out either.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, just sounds like everything. Hey, listen, Thank

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Speaker 1: you very much, Chris, I really appreciate your time. Chris Keel,

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Speaker 1: the Herald Senior Business writing.

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