‘Amazon Style’ opened about a year and a half ago
“We continue to invest in offline grocery stores.”
Amazon has decided to close its offline clothing store ‘Amazon Style’ after about a year and a half.
According to CNBC on the 2nd (local time), Amazon announced that it plans to close its Amazon-style stores in Columbus, Ohio and Glendale, California by the 9th.
“After careful review, we have decided to close our two Amazon Style brick-and-mortar stores and focus on online fashion shopping,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement.
“We are working closely with employees affected by store closures,” he said, adding that severance pay will be paid to employees who wish to move to other positions within the company or leave Amazon.
“Offline retail remains an important part of our business,” he said, adding, “We continue to invest to grow our grocery business.”
As part of its expansion into offline stores, Amazon opened its first Amazon Style store in Glendale, selling clothing, shoes, and accessories, in May last year.
The goal was to increase clothing sales by providing opportunities to try on popular brands and private label brands in online stores.
However, as offline business performance was mixed, Amazon took extensive measures in March to cut costs and reduce physical space, and closed several offline stores, including the bookstore ‘Amazon Books’.
It began to reduce some of its warehouse space and discontinue several unverified businesses, and also laid off about 27,000 employees. The expansion of unmanned convenience store ‘Amazon Go’ and supermarket ‘Amazon Fresh’ was also temporarily halted.
However, an Amazon spokesperson said, “We recently opened two newly designed Fresh stores in Chicago,” and added, “We will continue to open new stores and reorganize the Fresh chain.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.