The new Amazon Style store is a step forward but it’s not a killer app.
There’s a lot to like about the fashion store that Amazon announced it will open later this year just outside Los Angeles in Glendale, California. It leverages technology in ways that other retailers haven’t embraced yet. The racks won’t have every product on them, you find a style you like and use your smartphone and a QR code to get products that fit you put into a private dressing room. When you’ve accumulated all the items you want to try, you go into your assigned private room, try on what you like, buy it, take it home and leave the rest behind. Like Amazon Go convenience stores, you can pay with a wave of your hand at checkout. The store, about 30,000 square feet, is the size of a small, local supermarket store, bigger than a typical fashion boutique but small compared to most department stores. No doubt many of the products will be chosen by algorithm and based on what Amazon knows about consumer taste from its largest-in-the-world online fashion business. That’s a big advantage for the new Amazon Style store. But it’s not everything. What people buy when they look at a screen is different than what they’ll like in a store. When you look at the colors of people’s footwear when you’re in public, you’ll see bright colors are everywhere right now. That has happened because the percent of footwear purchased online has exploded and brightness is important when you shop on a screen. But what’s appealing to buy online doesn’t always translate into how people react when the product is in front of them.
