Amazon Launches High-End Luxury Shopping Experience

Amazon.com is launching Luxury Stores, a shopping experience focused on high-end fashion and beauty brands, MarketWatch reported. Luxury Stores will be available in the Amazon app by invitation-only to U.S. Prime members, and will kick off with Oscar De La Renta, featuring the brand's pre-fall and fall/winter collections.

In the upcoming weeks, other brands will also join Luxury Stores, creating a "store within a store" experience. According to MarketWatch, participating brands will independently make decisions about inventory, selection, and pricing. Amazon will also provide merchandising tools for brands to create and personalize content in their own unique voices. In addition, Luxury Stores will also offer technology such as "View 360," an interactive feature available on certain garments that will allow consumers to examine items in great detail.

Total Retail's Take: It's an interesting time for Amazon to launch Luxury Stores since there's less demand for high fashion as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Prime members requested this service and there's a wait list for it, so clearly there's a segment of consumers interested in shopping for high-fashion items at this time. And Amazon has a vested interest in keeping its Prime members happy.

Marcel Hollerbach, chief marketing officer at Productsup, a SaaS for product content integration, optimization, and distribution, offered his thoughts on Amazon's launch of Luxury Stores.

“Amazon is not only an e-commerce front-runner for its variety of products and convenient deliveries, but now it’s aiming to become a leader in attainable luxury," says Hollerbach. "By incorporating Luxury Stores, Amazon taps into an entire new segment while also enriching the shopping experience for current customers — where else can you add paper towels and Oscar de la Renta ready-to-wear to the same cart? Additionally, Amazon’s 360-degree try-on detail is an exciting feature for consumers to visualize how a product will look and fit on themselves, without leaving their homes. Providing this level of product data online is crucial to replicating the typical experience high-end shoppers expect from going into physical stores. I expect other online retailers will follow suit, offering some version of virtual try-ons as well.”