Amazon.
com Inc. opened its first hair salon on Tuesday. Amazon Salon, located in the London shopping district Spitalfields, offers hairdressing services, equipped with technology, including augmented-reality-hair consultations.
The 1,500-square-foot store also features entertainment streaming on Amazon Fire tablets and a test of a new ‘point and learn’ experience for brick-and-mortar retail. With the technology, customers can point to an item on a shelf to display product information on the back of the screen.
Consumers who want to buy items, such as hair care, need to scan the QR codes that appear on the shelf to order them on Amazon’s UK website.
Amazon said in a statement that the space is designed as an experience space where new products and technology can be showcased. The company hopes to offer a new experience to customers that will also benefit the broader salon industry, an Amazon spokeswoman said when asked about the broader business purpose of the site.
Amazon has made its name and money in e-commerce, digital subscriptions and other web services, but has entered small and large physical retailers over the past few years. After opening kiosks in malls to sell devices and accessories and clothing from Amazon brands, the company opened its first bookstore in Seattle in 2015. In 2017, the luxury grocery chain bought Whole Foods for $ 13.7 billion and opened a number of stores to showcase the cashless Just Walk Out technology, including Go and Go Groceries. It also operates stores that only sell goods with four star-and-higher ratings on its e-commerce market
Technology in the Amazon Salon allows customers the augmented reality to try out a hair color before the dye is made up.
Photo:
Amazon
The opening of Amazon Salon reiterates the company’s interest in retail and could potentially reflect its ambitions in markets that combine goods and services, said Jason Goldberg, head of trading strategy at marketing and communications firm Publicis Groupe SA. The technology giant already operates Amazon Home Services, which in some cities enables customers to hire external contractors for loose jobs such as furniture assembly.
But industrial service operations do not tend to grow as well as those in the technology sector, given their dependence on labor, Mr. Goldberg added.
“My immediate response to knee-jerk reaction is that the aspect of professional services is a necessary evil for them and that they are doing it to establish credibility and foothold in the professional beauty space,” he said. “But Amazon has surprised us before, and I certainly would not take it to the bank that they do not strive to make money from this.”
The opening of the salon follows the launch of a professional beauty division on Amazon’s UK website, which requires local hair and beauty companies for spas and salons. Amazon Salon services are provided by Elena Lavagni, owner of Neville Hair & Beauty, an independent salon in London.
John Boumphrey, Amazon’s country manager, said in a statement that Amazon wants the new space to be a place “where we can work with the industry and test new technologies.”
The salon can also be designed as a showcase for such innovations: the company started licensing its Just Walk Out technology to other retailers after proving it works in its own stores, and could do the same with innovations like the point and learning experience, mr. Goldberg said.
Amazon Salon is currently 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 current plans to open further salon locations.
Write to Katie Deighton by [email protected]
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