By CNBC
As Amazon kicked-off its 48-hour sale, the company will use this day to increase its sale on apparel and footwear.
This will be an opportunity for Amazon to create a larger scope of its apparel side of the business and have consumers to think about Amazon not only as a place to go for commoditized goods, not designer brands.
As the company gears to be a bigger name in fashion, they contracted a long term partnership with mega-fashion influencer Arielle Charnas, who gained more than 1.2 million followers on Instagram and has her own clothing line Something Navy at Nordstom.
Prime Day, correspondingly makes you think automatically about Instant pot and Amazon Echo devices- not about dresses and name brand heels.
The apparel and accessories market is worth more than $1 trillion, so Amazon clearly sees there’s a lot at stake to be in that space. It’s using its Prime Day to tour fashion deals. And it’s also had a slew of recent initiatives and tie-ups with fashion influencers beyond Charnas to show for more than just the basics. It hopes to take market share as other apparel retailers are struggling. And it hasn’t been afraid to experiment.
As Wells Fargo foresees that Amazon will generate roughly $35 billion in sales in 2018 related to apparel and footwear.
But a lot of those transactions for Amazon stem from “commoditized” clothing items like white T-shirts, jeans and underwear. Amazon has an in-house brand AmazonEssentials is popular for that sort of thing- sells a 4 pack women’s camisoles for $24.50, or a 10-pack of cotton crew socks for kids for $9.45.
During Prime Day
Amazon sees this as an opportunity to sell more fashionable clothes today as mall-based apparel retailers like Victoria’s Secret, Chico’s and Dressbarn are closing stores and struggling to draw-in shoppers. And department store chains like Macy’s and J.C. Penney, which have been reliant on apparel sales, are shrinking.
This Prime Day will test its latest efforts to put Amazon as a fashion destination to the test.
More clothing sales shifting online
Separate data from eMarketer show Amazon is on track to grab nearly 30% of the market for apparel and accessories sold online in the U.S. this year, up from 22.7%, or about $18.38 billion in sales in 2016.
Read more on CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/amazon-is-using-prime-day-this-year-to-try-to-win-in-fashion.html