Amazon Style Retail Clothing Store to Launch in Los Angeles

Amazon Style, an IRL clothing store, will open in Los Angeles later this year. The 30,000-square-foot retail establishment, located in Glendale’s upscale Americana at Brand open-air mall, will feature high-tech dressing rooms from which shoppers can electronically summon items as Amazon attempts to address the “pressure points” of traditional clothes shopping. Amazon has been experimenting with physical retail since 2015 when it opened a bookstore in Seattle. In 2017 it purchased the Whole Foods grocery chain for $13.7 billion, and has since then experimented with various formats, including “grab-and-go” convenience stores. Continue reading Amazon Style Retail Clothing Store to Launch in Los Angeles

Coalition of Small Businesses Aims to Weaken Amazon’s Grip

Trade groups representing small merchants in hardware, office supplies, books and groceries are organizing in 12 cities to form Small Business Rising, a coalition for stronger antitrust laws and enforcement of existing ones. They hope new measures will force Amazon to spin off its own business lines that compete with them. The House Antitrust Subcommittee is already considering such legislation but hasn’t yet introduced a bill. Amazon called the efforts “misguided interventions in the free market.” Continue reading Coalition of Small Businesses Aims to Weaken Amazon’s Grip