Amazon to open its first-ever physical clothing store – in a California lifestyle center

Amazon’s latest store concept is designed to combine the personalization of e-commerce with the immediacy of brick-and-mortar shopping.

The first Amazon Style store will open later this year, year at The Americana at Brand, a lifestyle center in Glendale, Calif. The approximate 30,000-sq.-ft. store, designed to offer a high-tech shopping experience, will feature women’s and men’s apparel, shoes and accessories. The assortment will feature “hundreds of brands” chosen by fashion creators and “feedback provided by millions of customers shopping on Amazon.com,” according to Amazon.

How Amazon Style will work
Not surprisingly, Amazon Style will distinguish itself from traditional clothing stores with high-tech flourishes.  Most of the clothing will be out of sight and kept in the back of the store, with only one sample of each item displayed on the sales floor. The format will allow Amazon Style to offer more than double the number of products offered for sale in a fashion store of its size.

Using the Amazon Shopping app, customers will scan an item’s QR code to see sizes, colors, overall customer ratings and additional product details. With the tap of a button, shoppers can have the item brought to a fitting room. If the customer doesn’t want to try it on, the item can be sent directly to the pickup counter. 

Customers can continue shopping in the fitting rooms, which have touchscreens where they can browse more options, rate items, and request more sizes or styles to be delivered directly to the room within minutes.  As customers browse the store and scan items, Amazon will leverage its machine learning algorithms to recommend tailored, real-time suggestions regarding other items they be interested in buying.

For a more tailored experience, customers can share preferences like style and fit to receive more refined recommendations. Shoppers can also view deals in-store that match their preferences, right in the Amazon Shopping app.

Amazon Style will feature automated technologies and processes used in Amazon fulfillment centers for fast delivery of requested items to fitting rooms.  Store associates will provide customer service, deliver items to fitting room closets, merchandise the store, help customers at checkout and manage back-of-house operations.

Items scanned at Amazon Style are saved in a customer’s Amazon Shopping app, enabling them to purchase at a later time or find more items online from new brands discovered in the store. Customers can shop millions of apparel items on Amazon.com, request delivery to Amazon Style and then try on items in the fitting room when they get to the store. Items can also be returned in the store. 

In-store prices will be the same as on Amazon.com. Customers can view deals in store that match their preferences in the Amazon Shopping app. The stores will also feature new complex inventory management systems, new technology to support customer service, and Amazon One palm recognition-based payment. Select customers will be invited to preview the store’s shopping experience before it opens to the public.

Amazon Style will join Amazon’s other existing brick-and-mortar banners - Amazon Go, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Books, Amazon 4-star, Amazon Fresh, and Amazon Pop Up stores. By combining app-based shopping with automated micro-fulfillment technology and endless aisle inventory, the retailer is attempting to truly duplicate the online shopping experience in a physical store. Amazon Style stores could also easily serve as pickup and return points for online purchases, as well as provide ship-from-store capability for fashion purchases.

“We obsessed over designing a shopping experience focused on helping customers find great looks, and it led us to create Amazon Style,” said Simoina Vasen, managing director, Amazon Style, in a corporate blog post. “We’re so excited to offer a shopping experience that inspires discovery and combines the best of shopping on Amazon.com with the benefit of touching and trying on items to ensure a great fit.”