Amazon.
com Inc. opened its first hairdressing salon on Tuesday. Located in the commercial district of Spitalfields, London, Amazon Salon offers tech-savvy hairdressing services, including augmented reality consultations.
The 1,500-square-foot two-story store also includes entertainment broadcasts on Amazon Fire tablets and a test of a new “point and learn” experience for the retail sale of bricks and mortars. The technology allows customers to point to an item on a shelf to display product information on a rear-mounted screen.
Consumers who want to buy items for sale, such as hair conditioner, must scan the QR codes displayed on the shelf to request home delivery on Amazon’s website.
Amazon in a statement said the space was designed as an experiential place where it will showcase new products and technology. The company hopes to offer customers a new experience that will also benefit the larger salon industry, an Amazon spokeswoman said when asked about the site’s broader business goal.
Amazon earned its name and money in e-commerce, digital subscriptions and other web services, but in recent years it has entered physical commerce small and large. After opening kiosks in malls to sell devices and accessories and clothing from the Amazon brand, the company opened its first bookstore in Seattle in 2015. In 2017 it bought the supermarket chain Whole Foods for $ 13.7 billion and opened several stores to showcase its boxless Just Walk Out technology, including the Go and Go Grocery store. It also operates stores that only sell products with four-star and higher ratings in their e-commerce marketplace
Amazon’s salon technology allows customers to use augmented reality to test a hair color before dyeing.
Photo:
Amazon
Amazon Salon’s opening reiterates the company’s interest in retail and may reflect its ambitions in markets that combine both goods and services, said Jason Goldberg, director of marketing strategy for the marketing and communications company. Publicis Groupe SA. The tech giant already operates Amazon Home Services, which allows customers in some cities to hire external contractors for odd jobs, such as furniture assembly.
But heavy service companies do not usually scale as well as those in the technology sector, given their dependence on labor, Goldberg added.
“So my immediate reaction is that the look of professional services is a necessary evil for them and they do it to establish some credibility and a place of support” in the professional beauty space, she said. “But Amazon has surprised us before, and it certainly wouldn’t take me to the bank if they didn’t have aspirations to make money with it.”
The opening of the salon follows the introduction of a professional beauty section on Amazon’s UK website, which offers supplies for local beauty and hairdressing companies for spas and salons. Amazon Salon will be provided by Elena Lavagni, owner of Neville Hair & Beauty, a London-based independent salon.
John Boumphrey, the country’s manager in the UK for Amazon, said in a statement that Amazon wants the new space to be a place “where we can collaborate with the industry and test new technologies.”
The show can also be designed as a showroom for these innovations: the company began licensing its Just Walk Out technology to other retailers after proving that it worked in its own stores and could do the same with innovations like the point and the learning experience, Mr. Goldberg said.
Currently, Amazon Salon is only open to Amazon employees. The general public will be able to sign up for appointments in the coming weeks, the company said, adding that it has no plans to open more showrooms.
Write to Katie Deighton to [email protected]
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