Instead of offering bargains, Allbirds will increase prices for all its products by USD 1 on November 27th. Allbirds will match every dollar and proceeds are going to Fridays for Future, the climate strike movement founded by Greta Thunberg. This is on-brand for Allbirds, which has made sustainability a core part of its business, from using innovative materials like crab shells for t-shirts to listing the carbon footprint of every sneaker in its collection.
Allbirds isn't the first retailer to eschew deep discounts on the day after Thanksgiving. Outdoor brand REI famously closes shop on Black Friday, paying its 13,000+ employees to #OptOutside instead. In France, a few hundred brands pledged to Make Friday Green Again, urging people to ‘consume less but better’.
The move to a more conscious form of consumerism can make good business sense, too: a McKinsey survey on fashion in April found that 63% of surveyed consumers in the UK and Germany consider a brand’s promotion of sustainability to be an important purchasing factor. If you're in fashion or retail, time to figure out how to help those consumers put their money where their considerations are 💚
Stay healthy,
The TrendWatching content team
