Company / division: Amazon
Amazon Has Acquired a Startup Which Creates 3D Body Models (Oct 3, 2017)
Amazon has acquired Body Labs, a startup which makes software for creating detailed and realistic 3D maps of people’s bodies, for somewhere between $50 and $100 million. The technology has an obvious connection to Amazon’s Echo Look, one of its more marginal Echo devices, but one which has potential to drive strong ties with the burgeoning clothing side of Amazon’s e-commerce business. Beefing up the capabilities of that device and the associated app-based capabilities for evaluating fashion looks and the like could therefore pay off in a big way for Amazon as it looks to differentiate itself from other clothing retailers.
via TechCrunch
Amazon Has Over a Dozen Unmarked Private Label Brands (Aug 7, 2017)
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Amazon Launches Prime Wardrobe, a Mix of Home Try-On and Clothing Box Service (Jun 20, 2017)
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★ Amazon Announces Echo Look, Which Adds a Camera and Fashion Advice to Echo for $20 (Apr 26, 2017)
Amazon has announced a new device in its Echo family called the Echo Look, which assumes a different form factor, adding a still and video camera to features of the standard device for $20 more. For now, the focus is fashion advice: the camera can take full-length photos or videos of the user, acting like a full-length mirror at a basic level but also offering fashion advice through machine learning tools trained by fashion experts. I say for now, because once you have a camera in an Echo device it could be used for many other things too – indeed, when reports and pictures of this device first surfaced people assumed it was a security camera, and there’s really no reason why it couldn’t be. And several of these devices together could be very useful for motion sensing and other tasks as part of a smart home system over time too. But Amazon’s also smart to start specializing the Echo a little, with a particular focus on women, as I would guess a majority of sales of Echo devices to date have gone to men. I’d bet we’ll see other more specialized devices in time, but also other uses for this camera as it gets software updates. And this also starts to get at a real business model for Echo, which so far hasn’t done much to boost e-commerce sales but could now drive clothing revenue through sales of both third party apparel and Amazon’s own growing line. And what Amazon learns from the Look and its associated app can be fed back into the core Amazon.com clothes shopping experience too, improving recommendations in the process. But of course all this comes with downsides: not only do you have a device in your home that’s always listening, but you now have a device with a camera, which could feasibly be hacked remotely to take pictures or video of you. And Amazon will store the images it captures indefinitely, creating a further possible source of problems down the line.
via The Verge
Millennials buy more clothes on Amazon than any other website – Recode (Mar 11, 2017)
Groceries and clothing are two categories where I and others might once have assumed Amazon would never be a serious force, because they appear to lend themselves so poorly to online purchases. On the grocery side, Amazon still is a minor presence, but in clothing it’s now starting to make real inroads, especially among younger age groups. Of course, this data says nothing about total online purchases as a percentage of clothing purchases, and it’s likely that physical retail still dominates, but within e-commerce Amazon is now the biggest retailer among millennials, which is quite the achievement. It continues to feel like Amazon is methodically looking at those retail segments where it’s underrepresented and methodically breaking down the barriers to growth. And of course even in the groceries category it’s doing some interesting things.
via Millennials buy more clothes on Amazon than any other website – Recode
Amazon plans to sell its own line of workout clothes – Recode (Jan 4, 2017)
Taken together with the news that Amazon is one of the potential bidders for American Apparel, this is yet more evidence that it’s very serious about the clothing space. Activewear is one of those categories where some people definitely care about brands and are willing to pay for them, but others just want functional clothing at a decent price, and Amazon could do very well among the latter segment. The rise of activewear at stores like Gap and sister company Old Navy over the last several years is a great illustration of this opportunity, and Amazon is smart to try to tap into it.
via Amazon plans to sell its own line of workout clothes – Recode