Show Entire Article
SEATTLE — Amazon is so serious about its next big thing that it hired three women to do nothing but try on size 8 shoes for its Web reviews. Full time.
The online retailer is shooting 3,000 fashion images a day in a photo studio using patent-pending technology.
And it is happily losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year on free shipping — and, on apparel, even free returns — to keep its shoppers coming back.
Having wounded the publishing industry, slashed pricing in electronics and made the toy industry quiver, Amazon is taking on the high-end clothing business in its typical way: go big and spare no expense.
“It’s Day 1 in the category,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, said in a recent interview. Though characteristically tight-lipped on bottom-line details, Mr. Bezos said the company was making a “significant” investment in fashion to convince top brands that it wanted to work with them, not against them.
The traditional retail world — and many major brands that want no part of Amazon — are gearing up to fight for their lives.
“It has the latitude to set prices and charge whatever it wants,” Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst for Forrester Research, said of Amazon. “That is a huge threat for brands.”
Page 1 of 6 | Next PageShow Entire Article
KORS News & Analysis
DATA IS REAL-TIME EXCEPT NOTED WITH *
* DATA DELAYED AT LEAST 15 MINUTES