Amazon’s Clothing Store Provides Glimpse Into Next-Gen Retail

The store, called Amazon Style, will open in high-end shopping destination The Americana at Brand, in Los Angeles, at an undisclosed date later in 2022. The store promises to provide an innovative, high-tech, in-store shopping experience that draws inspiration from the tech giant’s historically successful ecommerce operations and leverages the tech company’s shopping app platform. While the online retailer has been shunned by luxury and higher-end fashion brands in the past due to fears of brand dilution, designers like Oscar de la Renta, La Perla, and Altuzarra are carried on Amazon.com, and it is safe to assume shoppers can expect to find offerings from those designers in the new Amazon Style store. 

Beyond that, the company has indicated its new physical store will offer up to double the number of available styles as traditional stores. The increased capability will be powered by smart technology and intelligent inventory management tools that remove friction and streamline stocking enablement. The brands on offer will be chosen by fashion creators in concert with the company’s own robust database of customer shopping behavior. By leveraging insights into customer behavior and preferences gleaned from Amazon’s historically unheralded ecommerce database, the tech retailer plans to provide a shopping experience that integrates best-in-class convenience with best-in-class assortment. 

Cementing the new storefront as a truly innovative offering, and even as a prescient look into the future of brick-and-mortar, is the synergies enjoyed between the Amazon Style store experience and the Amazon Shopping App. Rather than having to search manually for an item in the right size or color, shoppers visiting the new store will be able to scan the item they want’s QR code through the app to see available sizes, colors, customer reviews, and other details. The platform even uses an AI-powered algorithm to generate more product recommendations and shoppers are able to send the items that catch their eye to the fitting room to try on, or directly to the pickup counter to purchase directly. Shoppers use the app to access the fitting rooms, and each fitting chamber is outfitted with LED touchscreens that greet the shoppers by name and allow them to request new items to try on, which are delivered using the same technology Amazon deploys across its fulfillment centers. Items purchased online by shoppers can also be returned at the new store, and any item a user scans while in Amazon Style is saved to the app. 

While Amazon has expanded in-real-life to a number of Fresh grocery stores, book stores, and even a hair salon, this is the company’s first fashion-oriented physical retail offering. The personalized shopping experience was built out using strategic cues from Amazon’s deep expertise in digital, and integrating them with the unique benefits of the in-store occasion. Retailers blending the best of omnichannel offerings through next-generation technology offerings and in-store innovations is a trend the PSFK research team has been following across industries, and one that points to a promising, convenient future for the retail industry and its consumer base.  

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This article originally appeared in the PSFK report, Technology Innovations Fueling Intelligent Store Operations.