How Allbirds entered China, and what it cost them

Allbirds ran China itself for five years. It opened six stores, built a Shanghai entity, then sold that entity’s net assets for $2.1 million in August 2024 and licensed the market to Belle Fashion for ten years. The storefronts are still trading. The company that built them no longer sells shoes.

Every number below comes from a filing, a company release or a dated Chinese report. Where something could not be checked, it says so.

One thing could not be checked. On September 10, 2026 the allbirds.tmall.com address redirected to allbirds.world.tmall.com, which wants a Taobao login, and JD Worldwide serves a bot check to anything that is not a browser. So no assortment count, no review count. The dates and the money are on the record.

Where they are now

Allbirds官方旗舰店 was live on JD Worldwide on September 10, 2026, and Belle International’s corporate site carries an Allbirds brand page. Store count has barely moved since the handover.

Allbirds had 7 stores in China at the end of 2025, up from the 6 it ran itself. It had listed on Nasdaq in November 2021 at $15 a share, worth $4.1 billion on its first day of trading. Source: Sports Business (体育大生意), April 2026. https://www.163.com/dy/article/KQA9RCBQ0529818P.html

Belle’s rights are broad and long.

Belle Fashion Group was appointed exclusive distributor and licensee in mainland China, Macau and Taiwan, effective June 28, 2024, overseeing distribution across retail, online and wholesale channels. Source: Allbirds press release, August 2024. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2024/08/02/2923520/0/en/Allbirds-Announces-Agreement-with-Belle-Fashion-Group-in-China.html

The US parent, meanwhile, has left the category.

American Exchange Group agreed to acquire Allbirds’ intellectual property and certain other assets and liabilities for an estimated $39 million, with closing expected in the second quarter of 2026. Source: World Footwear, April 2026. https://www.worldfootwear.com/news/american-exchange-group-agrees-to-acquire-allbirds-assets/11382.html

The registrant now files as Smartbird, Inc., “formerly: Allbirds, Inc. (filings through 2026-06-15)”. Source: SEC EDGAR company filings index, CIK 0001653909, checked September 2026. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001653909&type=10-K

So the China business sits under a ten-year license held by a Chinese retailer, granted by a company that has since sold the brand out from under it. Long licenses outlive the people who sign them.

The sequence they ran, with dates

The 2019 plan covered Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu with Swire, and the China team said it had studied the market for about two years before launch. Source: 36Kr (36氪), April 2019. https://www.36kr.com/p/1723508817921

Fast, tidy launch, and the part they got right.

The channel they picked first, and what it locked in

They picked themselves. Own entity, own lease, own staff, own flagship, and they said so out loud at the launch. Fair enough as a brand decision. As an operating decision it commits you to four things at once: a legal entity, a payroll, retail leases and a returns process, all before you know your repeat rate.

The co-founders said the conventional route would have meant a regional partner or a joint venture, and that they wanted their own team telling the brand’s story in China. The shoes launched at 899 to 1,099 RMB behind a 25-person Shanghai team. Source: Jiemian (界面新闻), April 2019. https://www.jiemian.com/article/3043672.html

The cheaper way to buy the same information was on the table well before 2019. A cross-border store puts the product in front of Chinese buyers with no Chinese company behind it. Footwear on Tmall Global takes a 50,000 RMB deposit and a 60,000 RMB annual fee at 5% commission; JD Worldwide’s footwear rung is 35,500 RMB and 7,100 RMB, also at 5% (TheChinaPath calculator data, September 2026).

Today’s numbers, not 2019’s. Run them in the Tmall Global setup and run calculator, or read the category breakdown in what it costs to sell footwear in China.

What it visibly cost

Allbirds never broke out China revenue in any 10-K. So the only China-specific number in five years of filings is the exit, and the exit is small.

“On August 6, 2024, we entered into an asset purchase agreement with an unrelated third party for the sale of certain net assets used in connection with the operation of our China subsidiary, Allbirds (Shanghai) Trading Co., LTD.” Consideration was $2.1 million against a net book value of $2.2 million, a loss of about $0.2 million. International revenue for the nine months to September 30 fell from $46.5 million in 2023 to $36.0 million in 2024. Source: Allbirds 10-Q, quarter ended September 30, 2024, filed November 2024. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1653909/000162828024045882/bird-20240930.htm

$2.1 million for the fixtures, inventory and working capital of a five-year-old China business with six stores in four cities. Whatever the license itself was worth, the filing does not say.

The group was shrinking around it.

Full-year 2024 net revenue fell 25.3% to $189.8 million, with a net loss of $93.3 million. Source: Allbirds, fourth quarter and full year 2024 results, March 2025. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/03/11/3041000/0/en/Allbirds-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2024-Financial-Results.html

Those are group figures, not China figures.

Where they lost time

Six stores in five years. The comparison makes it plain.

Allbirds had opened 6 China stores and its Tmall flagship had 230,000 followers. On, which arrived around the same time, had 22 stores by the end of 2023 and 720,000 Tmall followers. Belle Fashion runs more than 8,000 directly operated stores in China. Source: Sina Finance (新浪财经), August 2024. https://finance.sina.com.cn/stock/hkstock/ggscyd/2024-08-06/doc-inchsrzh0104012.shtml

The 2019 plan named Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu.

By July 2024 the six stores were in Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou and Shenzhen, and on July 4 the Tmall flagship’s operating entity changed from 欧布斯（上海）贸易有限公司 to 凡尚服饰（上海）有限公司, a wholly owned Belle Fashion subsidiary, under a ten-year license effective June 28, 2024. Source: Sina Tech (新浪科技), July 2024. https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/roll/2024-07-27/doc-incfqazc6472819.shtml

Two of the four target cities never opened. Two cities nobody had planned for got stores instead. That is what it looks like when the retail program gets rewritten every year rather than executed.

And the entity kept costing money the whole time. A wholly foreign-owned company carrying a retail payroll does not scale down quietly. It gets sold, and it gets sold for what its net assets are worth.

What to copy, and what to avoid

Copy the opening move. Xiaohongshu and WeChat went live two months before anything was for sale, so the first Chinese search for the brand landed somewhere the brand controlled. Cheap, and it still works. If account building is the piece you are missing, that sits with TheRedScroll, the group’s China social media agency.

The single-city start is worth copying too. One store, one team, one city. Shanghai first is right for most Western footwear brands.

Avoid the entity-first sequence. Allbirds incorporated, hired 25 people and signed a mall lease before it had a repeat-purchase number from Chinese buyers.

Avoid treating the license as an ending. Belle got ten years and every channel. The company’s own filing names the trade-off.

“We have limited ability to control how distributors represent our brand, manage customer experience, or adhere to our sustainability and ESG standards.” Source: Allbirds Form 10-K for fiscal 2025, filed March 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1653909/000162828026022192/bird-20251231.htm

Weighing the same choice? Distributor sourcing and management and cross-border setup are the two routes, and year one costs very different things on each.

Questions brands ask

Does Allbirds still sell in China?

Yes. The JD Worldwide flagship was live on September 10, 2026, and Belle International lists Allbirds among its brands. Belle Fashion has run it since June 28, 2024 under a ten-year exclusive distribution and license agreement.

Why did Allbirds hand China to Belle Fashion?

Scale it did not have: more than 8,000 Belle stores against Allbirds’ six. The company framed the move as part of its overseas plan, calling the shift from a direct go-to-market model to third-party distributors a component of its strategy for growth abroad.

What did the China business actually sell for?

Total consideration of $2.1 million against a net book value of $2.2 million, a loss of roughly $0.2 million, covering the net assets of Allbirds (Shanghai) Trading Co., Ltd. The 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2024 carries the figures.

Should a footwear brand open its own China stores first?

Rarely. A cross-border store on Tmall Global or JD Worldwide buys you real Chinese demand data for a deposit and an annual fee, with no Chinese company and no lease behind it. Open retail once the repeat rate justifies it, which is the sequence Allbirds ran backwards.

If you are choosing between running your own China entity and licensing a distributor who already has one, request a Compass shortlist and we will come back with vetted partners for your category.