Amazon gets physical: The online retail giant is opening a clothes shop

21 Jan 2022

Image: © michelangeloop/Stock.adobe.com

The Amazon Style store in LA will use machine learning to recommend clothes to customers as they shop.

Amazon is pivoting into physical fashion with plans to open a clothes shop in Los Angeles later this year.

The Amazon Style store will offer customers a selection of women’s and men’s apparel, shoes and accessories, with familiar and emerging brands.

There will still be an element of technology involved in the experience, however, and customers will be able use the Amazon shopping app to personalise their trip.

They can use the app to send items to a fitting room, where they can use a touchscreen to browse more options. They can request more sizes or styles that are delivered directly to their fitting room without them having to leave.

Shopper can also scan an item’s QR code using the app to get more information on it or send it to a pick-up counter. Machine learning algorithms recommend styles based on what the customer scans while they are browsing in the store. Amazon One, the palm recognition service used at the company’s physical grocery stores, will be introduced at the checkouts.

“Amazon Style combines Amazon’s love of fashion with innovative technology and world-class operations to help customers find looks they’ll love,” wrote Amazon Style’s managing director, Simoina Vasen, in a blog post.

Vasen claimed the idea behind the high-tech store was to bring “more looks and less clutter to in-store shopping”.

“Personal styling used to be expensive and feel exclusive, but with Amazon Style’s sophisticated technology, unique store design and thoughtful curation, we’ve made it easier than ever for customers to discover items they’ll look and feel great in,” she added.

The browsing experience will marry into Amazon’s existing online empire, as customers can keep shopping online after they leave the physical store. Items scanned at Amazon Style are saved in the Amazon shopping app, meaning customers can either revisit and purchase at a later time or find more items online from the brands they discovered in the store.

According to Vasen, the technologies used at Amazon Style will be similar to those in the company’s fulfilment centres. Amazon is due to open its first Irish fulfilment centre this year and plans to hire 500 people for the facility.

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Blathnaid O’Dea was a Careers reporter at Silicon Republic until 2024.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com