Is Amazon’s Bezos new king of bling?

Oscar de la Renta, a brand that is a regular on red carpets and a mainstay of posh department stores, has just turned up somewhere decidedly less opulent: Amazon.
Amazon.com Inc recently launched Luxury Stores, its latest effort to become a go-to destination for designer goods. Select Prime members can access a new section of Amazon’s app that showcases $2,790 handbags and $8,990 gowns. Oscar de la Renta is among the early brands to participate, along with Altuzarra and Roland Mouret, maker of the close-fitting Galaxy dress beloved of celebrities.
While Amazon under CEO Jeff Bezos has successfully muscled its way into just about every category of retailing, luxury has remained difficult for the e-commerce giant. High-end brands have been hesitant to put their wares on a marketplace that sometimes has counterfeit versions of their goods. They’ve also worried that it doesn’t feel terribly luxurious for their $1,000 jackets to be in a digital shopping cart alongside dish detergent and extension cords. This time, though, Luxury Stores is arriving amid a pandemic that has rattled shopper routines and brand strategies. If Amazon can’t get traction at this opportune moment, it might never be able to do so in this category — at least not on its own.
As part of its pitch, Amazon is giving luxury brands control over pricing and product assortment. That gives these labels incentive to try the new platform just as the old way of doing business is clearly crumbling. Some of the luxe set’s longtime partners are disappearing or on shaky ground. Barneys New York began liquidating even before the arrival of Covid-19.
Once the pandemic hit, the resulting business shock led Nordstrom Inc to close 16 stores and put Neiman Marcus Group in bankruptcy proceedings (it emerged only last month). While Lord & Taylor wasn’t much of a luxury destination by the time of its recent liquidation, its collapse sent warnings about what could befall other department-store chains.
It also helps that, earlier in the pandemic, Amazon partnered with Vogue and Council of Fashion Designers of America on a digital storefront that was meant to give a boost to independent designers who had been rocked by the crisis.
Now that industry kingmaker Vogue effectively has given Amazon its blessing, perhaps that offers permission for luxury brands to do the same.
Luxury Stores will only be as good as the brands that participate, though, and Amazon’s past efforts to court marquee brands haven’t always gone well. Nike Inc piloted selling some goods on the site, only to pull the plug in 2019. So far, the new platform doesn’t feature any labels that are owned by industry titans LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, Kering SA or Cie Financiere Richemont SA — a pattern that, if continued, will make it difficult for Amazon to get credibility with luxury shoppers.
For this group, the shopping mission isn’t about needs. It is about wants – to fit in and to feel good. Even the language of selling luxury is different. It is clear from Luxury Stores’ shop-in-shop setup that Amazon understands it must bend to those realities. The photos, videos and product pages have a curated feel that differs from the retailer’s typical, online garage-sale vibe. Product reviews, a hallmark of the main Amazon site, are not currently used, helping brands maintain control of the perception of each garment. The luxury section also has a new tool that allows shoppers to see certain garments in 360-degree detail, worn by several women of varying sizes and body types. This is something that many will find legitimately helpful, and a differentiator from rivals.
These touches may not be enough to pull shoppers away from well-established, immersive luxury sites such as Matchesfashion or insulate Amazon from nascent shopping efforts from non-traditional players such as Instagram and even TikTok.

—Bloomberg