• Forbes has a piece that elaborates on rumors that Amazon plans to launch "a luxury platform," with a dozen "luxury brands" involved, as well as a dedicated warehouse and a $100 million ad campaign … The new elevated fashion platform will reportedly give brands more control of their listings and presentation on Amazon."
One of the likely results of this program will be that "third-party sellers offering one of those yet unidentified dozen brands can basically close up shop since Amazon’s algorithms will give special preference to those featured brands." Which is one way of dealing with the counterfeit problems that Amazon continues to have.
This all happens as Amazon has "continued to expand its third-party marketplace, which in 2018 accounted for about half of its retail sales and currently 87% of its fashion listings. It launched Amazon Fashion, which includes styling-service Prime Wardrobe and Personal Shopper by Prime Wardrobe, as an answer to Stitch Fix. Amazon also introduced The Drop for curated limited-edition streetwear styles and developed over 100 of its own private-label fashion brands.
"With its fingers in many fashion pies, Amazon quietly became the nation’s leading apparel retailer, topping $30 billion in sales, according to estimates by Wells Fargo and seconded by Morgan Stanley."
