Allbirds, Inc. (NASDAQ:BIRD) shareholders that were waiting for something to happen have been dealt a blow with a 28% share price drop in the last month. Instead of being rewarded, shareholders who have already held through the last twelve months are now sitting on a 29% share price drop.

In spite of the heavy fall in price, it's still not a stretch to say that Allbirds' price-to-sales (or "P/S") ratio of 0.5x right now seems quite "middle-of-the-road" compared to the Luxury industry in the United States, where the median P/S ratio is around 0.7x. However, investors might be overlooking a clear opportunity or potential setback if there is no rational basis for the P/S.

How Allbirds Has Been Performing

While the industry has experienced revenue growth lately, Allbirds' revenue has gone into reverse gear, which is not great. One possibility is that the P/S ratio is moderate because investors think this poor revenue performance will turn around. If not, then existing shareholders may be a little nervous about the viability of the share price.

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The P/S Ratio?

The only time you'd be comfortable seeing a P/S like Allbirds' is when the company's growth is tracking the industry closely.

Taking a look back first, the company's revenue growth last year wasn't something to get excited about as it posted a disappointing decline of 15%. Regardless, revenue has managed to lift by a handy 16% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the earlier period of growth. So we can start by confirming that the company has generally done a good job of growing revenue over that time, even though it had some hiccups along the way.

Looking ahead now, revenue is anticipated to slump, contracting by 16% during the coming year according to the eight analysts following the company. That's not great when the rest of the industry is expected to grow by 6.8%.

With this information, we find it concerning that Allbirds is trading at a fairly similar P/S compared to the industry. It seems most investors are hoping for a turnaround in the company's business prospects, but the analyst cohort is not so confident this will happen. Only the boldest would assume these prices are sustainable as these declining revenues are likely to weigh on the share price eventually.

The Bottom Line On Allbirds' P/S

With its share price dropping off a cliff, the P/S for Allbirds looks to be in line with the rest of the Luxury industry. Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-sales ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

Our check of Allbirds' analyst forecasts revealed that its outlook for shrinking revenue isn't bringing down its P/S as much as we would have predicted. With this in mind, we don't feel the current P/S is justified as declining revenues are unlikely to support a more positive sentiment for long. If we consider the revenue outlook, the P/S seems to indicate that potential investors may be paying a premium for the stock.

There are also other vital risk factors to consider before investing and we've discovered 3 warning signs for Allbirds that you should be aware of.

Of course, profitable companies with a history of great earnings growth are generally safer bets. So you may wish to see this free collection of other companies that have reasonable P/E ratios and have grown earnings strongly.

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