Calling all Amazon shoppers… Or at least the ones who are in the market for a $3,000 dress. “The address for the world’s most sought-after fashion and beauty brands is in the palm of your hand,” says Amazon. Early September 2020, Amazon launched its Luxury Store with the notorious fashion house, Oscar De la Renta. More brands were launched in weeks following the first drop and there are more to come. The Amazon Luxury partnership is Article by: Anna Gaylord meant to reach a wider array of customers. The Luxury Stores break part of the exclusivity around the name brands Amazon is planning to work with. You can buy anything on Amazon, why not give buyers the ability to purchase an Oscar De La Renta dress along with their phone chargers, beauty products, or books? However, keeping with their ever so posh and luxe reputation, only select Amazon Prime members in the United States will be invited to shop the collections. These chosen members are Amazon’s more affluent customers. If you are not part of that group but want the in, you can request an invitation and be added to the waitlist. The velvet ropes of exclusivity continue as these “elite” Amazon Prime members can only shop Luxury Stores on the mobile app. The app allows the customer the option to display the garment in interactive 360-degree detail. The purpose of this is to create the “store within a store” experience.
Expect nothing less for Amazon’s finest customers. Amazon wants its luxury customers to view their clothes with the best experience possible. Although this technology is incredibly innovative and does create an ideal shopping experience, it is only being used for the Luxury Stores. Looking at the world of 2020 the “store within a store” concept is valuable since it would reduce the need for an in-person store experience. During the Coronavirus pan demic, we Sketch by: Grace McCarty saw big departm e n t stores like Lord & Taylor close. As a haute couture gown was not the first thing in everyone’s online shopping cart while the world was shut down, it was cunning of luxury brands to create this partnership with Amazon when they did. It gives the collaborating brands a much wider reach of customers in a time they needed it most. Oscar De La Renta CEO, Alex Bolen, told Vogue it just made sense to reach customers where they already were: Amazon. If other brands follow in Oscar De La Renta’s footsteps with this ingenious partnership, the future of fashion might look like your average Amazon purchase. But does having Luxury fashion brands on Amazon represent just how dependent we are becoming on Amazon? Why go to multiple stores at all when you can buy anything and everything in one place? Besides being a bookstore, grocery store, streaming service and so much more, Amazon is also the new 5th Avenue. 17
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