Last week, Amazon launched a service that allows you to try before you buy when buying, say, electrical items. We wrote about it here: Amazon trials new ‘try now, pay later’ service. The new foray into a similar service is related to fashion and it’s called Amazon Prime wardrobe. You can read about it here and watch the video below to get to grips with the concept.
https://youtu.be/EIQh0O3wOdM
Several aspects of the scheme stand out. Firstly, there’s a surprisingly big selection available in what is a beta trial: one million individual items from big brands such as CK, Levi’s, Adidas, Timex and Lacoste.
The idea is that you buy your goods, fill a box and have 7 days to try the items on and decide what to keep. You can then return what you don’t want in the prepared pre-paid box and the more you keep, the better the price. You can save up to to 20%. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the scheme is the encouragement to just leave the return despatch box on your doorstep for collection. See the video.
There’s no word as to what you do if you live in a block or have a shared front door or live in a place where someone might pinch the return consignment. The obviously branded Amazon Wardrobe packaging could be, shall we say, attractive to the light-fingered.
Still, with this launch, it’s yet another new scheme from Amazon to develop their business and profitability and in recent weeks such innovations have been coming thick and fast. Amazon is trying lots of new things. Fashion is a huge sector and this plays to the aspect of fashion which does see a lot of returns. Apparently ASOS has factored in a 50% rate for sales. This is clearly an interesting new horizon for Amazon
All that said, don’t get too excited yet, this is currently a US beta trial that’s not open to all so Amazon is clearly testing the waters and trying to get a measure of how the scheme will play out.
