Amazon Is Closing Style Apparel Stores as Grocery Push Ramps Up

Amazon is shuttering its bodily clothes shops simply 17 months after opening the primary outlet, abandoning one other brick-and-mortar retail format as the corporate sharpens its concentrate on grocery shops.

The 2 Amazon Fashion shops, positioned in Glendale, California, and Columbus, Ohio, will shut by Nov. 9, Amazon informed staff on Thursday.

“After cautious consideration, we’ve determined to shut our two Amazon Fashion bodily retail shops and concentrate on our on-line style buying expertise, the place we’re providing new, thrilling choice at nice worth and introducing progressive know-how to satisfy the wants of each buyer,” Amazon spokesperson Kristen Kish informed Bloomberg Information.

The e-commerce big final yr closed most of its Amazon-branded bodily shops, together with bookstores, a spread mart known as Amazon 4-Star and mall pop-up kiosks. The shutterings had been among the many first in what turned a yr of product wind-downs and layoffs on the Seattle-based firm.

At the same time as Amazon axed varied different codecs, it opted to proceed with the primary Fashion location, which opened in Could of 2022. The shops and the groups of company staff engaged on the format finally employed a couple of hundred individuals, in line with an individual aware of the matter.

Kish stated Amazon was working with affected personnel to determine different roles on the firm and would supply severance to those that decline an inner switch. She stated bodily retail stays necessary to the corporate, and Amazon is “persevering with to spend money on rising our grocery shops enterprise.”

Tony Hoggett, the previous Tesco Plc government employed to steer Amazon’s bodily retail shops, not too long ago kicked off an effort to revamp Amazon’s Recent-branded grocery shops and streamline the corporate’s on-line grocery franchises. The corporate plans to proceed opening new supermarkets, Kish stated. Income for Amazon’s bodily shops phase — primarily from Complete Meals Market places — rose 5.6 % within the third quarter to $4.9 billion.

By Matt Day

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