Amazon's high fashion ambitions sees e-tailer open new London photography studio
Amazon Fashion has officially opened a new photography studio as it looks to ramp up its fashion ambitions, and has appointed model Suki Waterhouse as the new face of its AW15 clothing campaign.
Amazon claims the new studio, based in Shoreditch, London, is the largest in Europe covering almost an acre and will help the business add more than 500,000 images of clothing to its site each year.
Opening the studio will now allow Amazon to boost its clothing inventory by pushing sales of its own products and aiding third parties to up sales on its marketplace.
Sergio Bucher, vice president of Amazon Fashion EU, said: "Our aim is to make Amazon the best place to buy fashion online. The opening of our new fashion studio illustrates our ambitions".
Of the roughly 270 million customers with active accounts around 40 million shop from the website’s fashion section, but despite this Amazon has struggled in the past to own luxury fashion credentials; LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, Kering, owner of Gucci and Alexander McQueen and Hermes all refused to distribute their clothing through Amazon. It has though made headway with brands such as Calvin Klein and Michael Kors which currently stock items on its marketplace.
Amazon has steadily been building its fashion business as it looks to take a chunk of the apparell and accessories e-commerce sector, which in the UK alone totalled £91bn in 2013 according to an IMRG report. In 2006, it paid an undisclosed price for US-based retailer Shopbop, followed by the 2009 acquisition of shoe e-tailer Zappos for a reported $850m. Two years later Amazon launched MyHabit, the e-commerce site's take on flash sales.
It was also rumoured to have been in the running to buy luxury fashion e-tailer Net-a-Porter before it ultimately struck a deal with Italian fashion business Yoox.
The move comes as the e-commerce giant revealed it made a surprising $92m in the three months to July compared to the $126m it lost a year ago.