First Amazon Clothing Store To Open This Year At Americana Mall In Glendale
After nearly a decade of experience with various physical retail concepts like bookstores and supermarkets, Amazon is making yet another foray into brick-and-mortar retail, this time with plans for a clothing store.
The first of the clothing stores is slated to open later this year at the Caruso-developed Americana at Brand in Glendale, the e-commerce platform announced Thursday.
Called Amazon Style, the store will heavily feature technology to aid shoppers as they browse men’s and women’s clothes. Every item will have a QR code that, when scanned by customers, will show a bevy of product details, including alternative sizes, color options and customer ratings.
Fitting rooms will have touch screens, allowing shoppers to browse additional items or sizes, rate items and request additional pieces to try on. The Amazon Shopping app will also be connected to the shopping experience, allowing customers to save items and see suggestions based on past purchases.
“Once again, the most innovative companies in the world have chosen to launch their latest retail concepts with us,” Caruso founder and CEO Rick Caruso said in a statement.
It’s not the first partnership between Amazon and Caruso. An Amazon 4-Star opened at the Americana at Brand in 2019. There are also Amazon Books locations at Caruso’s Palisades Village and Waterside at Marina Del Rey, while Amazon Fresh will open locations later this year at two other Caruso properties: The Promenade at Westlake and Encino Marketplace.
“Our passion for innovation hasn’t stopped since we changed the face of retail over 20 years ago, and we have long been the first choice for digitally native brands entering the brick-and-mortar space,” Caruso added.
The planned 30K SF store is smaller than typical department stores like Nordstrom or Macy's, which span about 150K SF on average. The store will include Amazon's clothing brands, though most items will be non-Amazon labels, the Associated Press reported.
Amazon Style Director Simoina Vasen told CNBC there would be a wide selection in terms of price.
“You’ll find everything from the $10 basic to the designer jeans to the $400 timeless piece,” Vasen said. “We want to meet every budget and every price point.”
In 2020, Amazon unseated Walmart as the top clothing retailer, capturing roughly 11% of all clothing sales in the country and about 34% of all online apparel sales that year, CNBC reported, citing research from Wells Fargo.
Amazon declined to share additional details about the store, such as when it will open or when others might follow, and representatives for Caruso didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is the first physical clothing store for Amazon, which opened its first brick-and-mortar concept, a bookstore, in 2015.
