Amazon opens its first-ever physical clothing store in Los Angeles, US

World’s largest online retailer Amazon.com Inc. opened a physical clothing store on Wednesday, May 25 featuring clothing from the prominent brands like Levi’s, Tommy Hilfiger, Champion, and others. The brick-and-mortar clothing store, Amazon Style, was inaugurated at Los Angeles, California-area at The Americana at Brand mall. It is the first ever Amazon’s clothing lineup after the Whole Foods, Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh grocery stores that will offer customers personalised and convenient shopping experience as well as ramp up employment opportunities. 

"Amazon is thrilled to welcome Los Angeles-area customers to shop at Amazon Style, our first-ever physical clothing store, and to introduce the local community to a few of the employees making it all happen," Amazon said in a statement late on Wednesday.

‘Amazon Style’ physical store announced in January

The company had announced its plans of opening ‘Amazon Style’ physical store back in the month of January, saying that a department store will boost its apparel sales. In a press release on May 25, Amazon said that its store will offer shoppers hassle free trying from its private-label brands in the advanced technology trial rooms. The customers can scan QR codes of items that they want to try using a smartphone app and can also pick clothes on Amazon.com that can be delivered to the store for trial and purchase. Amazon is selling T-shirts, jeans and other clothing items from its own labels as well as the outside brands. 

To give the customers a unique shopping experience, Amazon has equipped its store with a touchscreen monitor that will allow the customers to try on multiple items as well as rate the clothing before they leave the store. At the checkout counter the customers can also use their Amazon account to pay for purchases. The store will, however operate between 10AM to 9PM Monday through Thursday, 10AM to 10PM on Friday and Saturday, and from 10AM until 9PM on Sundays unlike the website that operates 24x7.

Amazon views the physical clothing stores as a promising avenue as it enters retail industry not only to expand its base to the customers via stores but also introduce them to the technologically equipped smart stores. The Seattle-based company had earlier stated that it will execute its plans to open stores only when it can bring "something original" to the customers. The clothing store comes just two months after the giant e-commerce announced shutting down all its physical book stores “Amazon 4-Star."