Amazon has been a name anonymous to selling books even electronics, toys, music to a certain extent. There is one market area however that they have been trying to fan out to for quite some time now; fashion. It celebrated a major milestone recently, when it surpassed the market value of retail giant Walmart. Amazon has sold almost everything possible to get to this point. It is counting on the clothing category to help the sales boom continue in the future. According to a recent study by financial firm Cowen and Company it is heading towards becoming the leading clothing retailer in the US by 2017, even leaving behind Macy’s. Amazon‘s clothing sales have been swiftly moving upwards faster than a lot of big players like Macy’s, Walmart, TJMaxx and Nordstrom. The main reason for the growth is the huge selection found on Amazon of each brand. It’s quick delivery and exceptional supply chain management are all adding to it’s sales growth.
Amazon has steadily been making the moves towards becoming a major clothing retailer for the past several years. Acquiring retail site Shopbop, launching online shops like Myhabit and East Dane and sponsoring Men’s New York Fashion week are all moves pointing to the online retailer’s strategies towards making it’s mark in the online fashion world. It even opened a 46,000 square-foot photo studio in London which will display 500,000 clothing images annually, it’s trying to push internationally to UK and India. Amazon is benefiting highly by concentrating on Men’s fashion as a category, according to Cowen’s report men are a key audience for it as they are shopping more than women on Amazon. Men are assumed to be more lazy about shopping, thus they turn towards Amazon for replenishing basic requirements like T shirts and undergarments.