How Did Amazon Become The Largest Apparel Retailer In The US?

"If you need to invest in the next 3 years, you will have many competitors, but if you are willing to extend the time span to 7 years, only a few people who are competing with you will still be able to stick to it, because few companies are willing to do so.

You only need to extend the time span, so you can put your energy into it, otherwise you will not be able to do so.

This is

A speech by the founder and CEOJeffBezos in an interview in 2011.

A few days ago, this paragraph seems to have been confirmed again. In the fashion business, Cowen (Cohen group)'s latest report shows that Amazon, which is based on online book selling, is going to surpass Messi's department store next year and become the largest in the US.

Retailer.

According to the report, the number of clothing pactions on Amazon has increased by 26% this year, and the annual sales volume is expected to reach US $28 billion.

By 2021, Cohen predicted that the figure would be as high as 62 billion dollars.

In the past, the clothing industry in the United States was mainly sold by department stores such as Messi, Nordstrom, Jesse Pani and so on.

A large retailer with Target monopolies.

But now, Amazon has successfully taken 6.6% of the American Apparel market to its pocket, and Cowen expects that share to rise to 16.2% in the next five years.

According to Cowen&Co, Amazon's most attractive place for consumers is Amazon Prime service. It is reported that the service now has more than 63 million members worldwide, and Amazon has recently announced that Amazon Prime will enter China before the arrival of double eleven. Its advantages in the supply chain and the user experience will undoubtedly attract a group of "fans".

Amazon dates back to 10 years ago about fashion. It was said that Bezos, which was visited at the Seventh Avenue exhibition hall in New York, was then interested in the fashion industry and regarded it as the key to Amazon's long-term sales ambition of over 200 billion dollars.

After all, "every fashion product has a higher gross profit margin."

The acquisition is undoubtedly the most direct and direct way for enterprises to enter the new industry. As a latecomer in the fashion industry, Amazon seems to have no mercy in buying and buying.

The acquisition of Shopbop.com is the first step for Amazon to enter the fashion industry.

In February 2006, Bezos formally announced the conclusion of the paction, which will bring the fashion fashion retailer set up in 2000.

Shopbop.com, which is based on boutique jeans, has now covered thousands of fashion brands, including some outstanding designer brands, such as 3.1Philip Lim, Alexander Wang, Rag&Bone and so on.

For Amazon's acquisition, Shopbop's current CEODarcy Penick once said in an interview agency: "Shopbop is one of Amazon's early acquisitions.

At that time, Amazon itself did not sell fashion products. If you look at its development year by year, it will find that it continues to invest in fashion.

They regard fashion as one of the products represented by their banner, and for Amazon, Shopbop's fashion audience is very small. "

And, as originally agreed, in addition to providing logistics and technical support to Shopbop, Amazon, as the "new" Amazon in the fashion industry, has maintained "Shopbop.com's independent operation" and all business models remain intact.

After that, Amazon also bought the world's largest footwear online retailer, Zappos, for $more than 900 million. This paction, which once recorded the acquisition of Amazon, is seen as a wayward means to directly eliminate its competitors. The so-called "I can't get rid of you." in 2007, Amazon launched a website specializing in the sale of shoes, Endless, but its 770 thousand person visits are obviously not comparable to that of Zappos 4 million 500 thousand.

After 3 years of acquiring Zappos, Amazon also chose to shut down endless.com.

In fact, over the past few years, Amazon has tried to launch several vertical clothing e-commerce websites, and now it has left men's clothing business EastDane, and myhabit also announced its closure in May.

It seems that compared with the brand new building from 0 to 1, at least in the fashion business, Amazon still depends on the vision to win.

In April of this year, there was news that the new potential purchase list was made by fashion rental company Rentthe Runway and LeTote, using App to collect data to solve the problem of underwear fit ThirdLove, and recently, the small fire Everlane was on the list.

However, despite the lavish popularity, the word "fashion" has long been regarded as nothing to do with Amazon.

TheIntegerGroup vice president of the electricity supplier channel once said: "Amazon is more like Costco than Nordstrom". People want to buy toilet paper instead of designer clothing and buy basic T-shirts at the most, which makes marketing officials of fashion brands feel that it is meaningless to toss up on them.

In 2012, Amazon launched its first fashion advertisement and signed contracts with hundreds of fashion and high-end brands including Michael Kors, Vivienne Westwood, and even recruited a group of designers to create website models.

The media said optimistically that Amazon has "successfully entered the high-end fashion industry".

However, despite the first attempt to make Amazon's clothing sales increase by three digits, the next road is not as smooth as it imagined. Because many brands still don't buy it and refuse to join.

Two years after Amazonfashion went online, only 16% of the fashion brands were stationed in Amazon.

L2's latest report also shows that less than 1/3 of the 83 luxury brands are still in Amazon.

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The usual low price strategy is one of the reasons why many fashion brands are afraid of Amazon.

Bezos is very clear that unlike its core business, "the fashion industry has a mature price cutting rhythm".

So for the fashion business, Amazon has adopted a new strategy, "promise full price mode".

Sure enough, this new mode has made NicoleMiller, CalvinKlein, KateSpade, Lacoste, Levis and other brands take the reassurance and cooperate with them.

However, it is worth noting that some of the heavyweight luxury brands are still firmly closed to Amazon.

Earlier this month, LVMH group publicly said it would never consider cooperation with Amazon because it was "worried that Amazon's product introduction and discount activities would damage the image and positioning of luxury brands".

Although the luxury brands who are not very well off these days are also doing a lot of action in terms of e-commerce, they still prefer to control their own processes in comparison with the third party platform, in order to provide users with high standard and strict shopping experience.

For Amazon, to really conquer these big cards still needs a lot of effort, at least to eliminate the "cheap feeling" carved in their minds.

Bezos naturally noticed this.

So you will find that Amason has become the famous sponsor of New York men's wear week, India fashion week (India FashionWeek) and Tokyo fashion week. At the same time, the Fashion Designers Association / CFDA/Vogue (CFDA/Vogue) reality show Festival "Fashion Fund" (The Fashion Fund) has been broadcast on Amazon Prime. At the same time, seven self operated brands such as Franklin&Freeman, Scout+Ro and SocietyNewYork have been launched.

Obviously, Amazon is trying to make itself more fashionable. After all, clothing is one thing, and fashion is another matter.