How Amazon’s Personal Styling Service Is Personalization on a Mass Scale
Credit: Amazon
It looks like personal shopping is going mass. If Amazon gets this right it could be a game changer as Amazon’s strength is its depth of offering and its weakness is also its depth of offering. You know what I mean if you have ever tried to buy something on Amazon like a pair of white shoes (which I tried to do a few months ago) and then tens of thousands of results come up based on your query. This is one of the biggest pain points in online shopping. Online shopping is convenient because you can shop from everywhere, but it isn’t always efficient. Several services are sprouting up to solve this problem. One of these is Amazon’s new service Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe.
Still aiming to dominate the apparel sector last week Amazon launched Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe. The service allows shoppers to receive a curated box of clothing and shoes based on their style and personal preferences. To get started with the service customers have to complete an online quiz that covers a range of topics including the customer’s budget, style, body type, measurements etc. Then based on that data Amazon’s stylists select up to 8 items of clothing and shoes for the customer. Amazon says that it uses: “a combination of technology innovation and a personalized human touch” to select a curated set of items for customers using the service. It also reported that “our fashion stylists come from varied backgrounds in the fashion, retail, editorial, styling and creative fields. They are trained to select items and styles based on fit, color, styling, seasonal and current trends”.
Before the items are shipped the customer can review what its stylist has selected, likely in an effort on Amazon’s part to reduce the volume of returns. Customers also have the option of contacting their stylist through Amazon’s app. Once the customer receives their box of clothing they can keep and then pay for as many items as they like. Customers have seven days to try on merchandise and decide if they want to keep it. For merchandise the customer does not want to keep they can send the items back to Amazon in a resealable box with a prepaid shipping label provided by Amazon. The service is currently only available for women but Amazon is planning to offer the service to men soon.
The service costs $4.99 per month and customers can receive one styling per month. To be eligible for the service customers must be Amazon prime members. Amazon is not the first company to offer this type of service. Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe is largely modelled off of personal styling company Stitch Fix’s service. For a $20 styling fee (which is deducted from the cost of clothing items the customer chooses to keep) customers receive a curated set of clothing items. Stitch Fix’s quick ascent from a fledging start-up when it was founded back in 2011 to a company with a customer base of more than three million customers likely inspired Amazon to follow suit. Walmart launched a personal shopping service last year called Jetblack that customers access by sending texts with shopping requests. The service can fulfill almost any shopping request as long as it doesn’t involve food, alcohol or prescription drugs.
With more and more big brands deciding to sell on Amazon as well as Amazon’s deep catalogue of apparel merchandise Amazon certainly has the inventory but only time will tell if it’s got the style.
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