Newsmakers 2012:Amazon.com/Same-Day Shipping
This year Amazon.com made a play to become a bigger player in fashion—and it issued a big challenge to the retail industry.
The Seattle-based Fortune 500 company has one of the most visited sites on the Internet, ranking just below Facebook, according to digital business analytics company comScore Inc.
In the first quarter of 2012, Amazon took out ads in glossy magazine Lucky telling fashionistas that their coveted contemporary brands could be found at the Amazon Clothing Store. Amazon hired prominent buyers such as Amy Glick, formerly of Nordstrom, to improve Amazon merchandising, which only a few years before had been critiqued by retail journalist Lydia Dishman as poorly merchandised, compared with Amazon divisions Zappos and ShopBop.
The impact has been felt around showrooms all over the fashion industry, with many labels reporting increased business with Amazon. In March, Sheila Smith Oliver, owner of Los Angeles–based showroom Lit Studio, said that Amazon ranked among her top retailers.
Also in 2012, Amazon opened new, sprawling warehouse complexes in California. A San Bernardino, Calif., warehouse opened in October and will offer more than 700 jobs. The new warehouses were part of a 2011 deal with the state of California settling a sales-tax fight. Pundits also noted that the warehouses, built a short distance from major metropolitan centers, also will help Amazon in its next frontier—same-day shipping.
The concept was critiqued by some as unfeasible and too expensive, but Amazon and a handful of other retailers announced plans to deliver items the same day they are ordered, rather than the typical two or more days’ delivery time. Soon, same-day delivery will be an industry standard, said Peter Kilduff, chair of the department of fashion and merchandising at Cal Poly Pomona.
“It will make fast fashion look like the age of steam,” he said.—Andrew Asch
