Amazon.
com Inc. opened its first hair salon on Tuesday. Located in London’s Spitalfields shopping district, Amazon Salon offers tech-savvy hairdressing services, including augmented reality hair consultations.
The 1,500-square-foot two-story store also includes entertainment streaming on Amazon Fire tablets and a test of a new “point and learn” experience for retailing bricks. The technology allows customers to point to an item on a shelf to display product information on a rear-mounted screen.
Consumers wishing to purchase items for sale, such as hair conditioner, must scan the QR codes displayed on the shelf in order to be able to deliver them at home on the Amazon website in the UK.
Amazon said in a statement that the space was designed as a place of experience where it will present new products and technology. The company hopes to provide customers with a new experience that will also benefit the wider salon industry, an Amazon spokeswoman said when asked about the site’s business purpose.
Amazon has made a name for itself in e-commerce, digital subscriptions and other web services, but in recent years it has entered physical retail in small and large ways. After opening kiosks in malls to sell devices and accessories and clothing brand Amazon, the company opened its first bookstore in Seattle in 2015. In 2017 it bought the luxury food chain Whole Foods for $ 13.7 billion and opened more Many stores feature its Just Walk Out cashless technology, including Go and Go Grocery. It also operates stores that sell goods with four-star ratings and above ratings on its e-commerce market.
Amazon salon technology allows customers to use augmented reality to try a hair color before the dye is made up.
Photo:
Amazon
The opening of Amazon Salon reiterates the company’s interest in retail and may reflect its ambitions in markets that combine both goods and services, said Jason Goldberg, head of business strategy at marketing and communications company Publicis Groupe SA. The technology giant already operates Amazon Home Services, which allows customers in some cities to hire external contractors for strange jobs, such as assembling furniture.
But heavy-duty companies do not tend to escalate as well as those in the technology sector, given their dependence on the workforce, Mr Goldberg added.
“So my immediate reaction is that the appearance of professional services is a kind of evil necessary for them and that I do this to establish a certain credibility and a point of support” in the professional beauty space, he said. “But Amazon has surprised us before, and I certainly wouldn’t go to the bank because they have no aspirations to make money on this.”
The opening of the salon follows the introduction of a professional beauty section on the Amazon website in the UK, which offers local hair and beauty care products for spas and salons. Amazon Salon services will be provided by Elena Lavagni, owner of Neville Hair & Beauty, an independent salon based in London.
John Boumphrey, Amazon’s country manager for the UK, said in a statement that Amazon wants the new space to be a place “where we can work with industry and test new technologies.”
The show can also be designed as a showroom for such innovations: the company began licensing its Just Walk Out technology to other retailers after proving that it operates in its own stores and could do the same with innovations such as point and the 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 other salon locations.
Write to Katie Deighton to [email protected]
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