‘Hi-tech’, underwhelming: Amazon’s IRL clothing store misses the point of shopping

theguardian.com:

Outside Amazon’s first in-person clothing store in California, Diemmi Le, 22, summed up her experience: “You don’t have to talk to anybody.”

For years, Amazon tried – and ultimately failed – to translate its online book business into successful brick and mortar bookstores. Dozens of stores were shuttered this spring. Now, the online shopping giant is trying again, this time attempting to reinvent the mall clothing store.

During the pandemic, Amazon pushed past Walmart to become the number one clothing retailer in the US, analysts from Wells Fargo concluded last year. The company is billing its new store as an ambitious fusion of its online shopping algorithm with an in-person shopping experience.

The first Amazon Style store, which opened in Glendale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, in May, allows customers to use a smartphone app to send clothes directly to their fitting rooms, rather than carrying them around, and offers additional clothing recommendations from the company’s algorithms.

Clad in company lanyards, employees at the front of the store greet customers and offer help navigating the smartphone app and the store’s free WiFi and phone chargers. And there are plenty of other Amazon employees at work behind the scenes, swiftly delivering new outfit picks to the “magic closet” in each dressing room.

But the store is designed to make many of its staff invisible: customers can use a dressing room touchscreen to summon a pair of pants in a different size, or a shirt in a different color, without having to see or speak to another human being.

“It’s something new, something you’ve never seen before. It’s an experience, rather than just a regular store,” said Marshall Sanders, 28.

In person, Amazon Style feels a bit like