Tuesday, April 20, 2021
“One step closer to the customer”
Amazon opens first hair salon
Amazon has long since advanced into a wide variety of industries with stationary branches. In London, the US group is now taking a step into a completely new field of business: a hairdressing salon. The main aim is to present new technologies and products.
Online giant Amazon is venturing into a completely new business field: The group announced that it will shortly be opening its first hairdressing salon. The store, simply dubbed “Amazon Salon”, should extend over two floors in the trendy London district of Spitalfields and be open seven days a week – initially for the 5000 employees of the nearby Amazon headquarters in Great Britain. In a few weeks, the salon will also be open to the public – if an appointment is booked in advance.
There are currently no plans for further branches, announced Amazon. According to the announcement, the group does not want to start an expansion in the hairdressing industry itself with the salon, but rather create a presentation opportunity for its products and offers in the areas of styling and fashion. “We designed this salon so that customers could come and experience some of the best technology, hair products and stylists in the business,” said John Boumphrey, UK chief executive of Amazon, according to a statement. The salon should bring the company “one step closer to the customer”. It’s about working with the hairdressing industry and trying out new technologies.
The technologies that are used include augmented reality screens in which customers can look at themselves with new hairstyles or hair colors. Amazon recently launched a new sales channel “Amazon Professional Beauty” for hairdressers and stylists. The range is to be presented in the new salon together with Amazon’s “point-and-learn” technology. Customers point their fingers at goods on the shelf and trigger a product presentation on a nearby screen.
The Amazon Salon is by no means the group’s first experiment in a stationary industry. In addition to its online businesses such as mail order, cloud computing, video and audio streaming, Amazon operates several physical stores under the Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh brands as well as the bookstore Amazon Books. In 2017, Amazon also took over the organic supermarket chain Whole Foods with around 500 branches in the USA. In these stores, too, Amazon is experimenting with new technologies such as cashierless payment systems and is promoting the integration of online and brick-and-mortar retail.
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