Fashionistas who find their groove in Gap stores and outlets can now turn to Amazon for their Gap style upgrade.
After years of pressure from consumers and investors, The Gap (GPS) fell into the fold of Amazon, selling through Amazon Amazon Fashion (opens in a new tab)to place. There, shoppers can find collections of clothing and accessories for adults and teens as well as kids and babies — even nursery furniture and homewares.
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It comes a year after Gap began partnering with Walmart, selling bedding (opens in a new tab)furniture and household items.
“Collaborating with Amazon Fashion gives us a new channel to bring modern American essentials from Gap to even more customers in the United States and Canada,” said Mark Breitbard, President and CEO of Gap Brand, in a press release. “We are thrilled to take this step with Amazon Fashion, expand our product offerings and deepen our connection with consumers through the Gap brand store.”
The move is a win for Gap, allowing it to reach more shoppers, as there are far fewer Gap stores and outlets than there were before the internet. Gap came of age in the 1970s, when its primary clothing focus was stocking Levi’s jeans (along with uh, yeah, records and tapes and a memorable jingle).
Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at GlobalData, a consulting firm, told the website Modern retail, “Gap’s sales volume is down and the brand is losing market share. Rebuilding that through its stores and website is proving difficult. Opening [a] Storing on Amazon is another route to market and theoretically exposes Gap to many more buyers because Amazon has a lot of traffic to the fashion part of its site. Gap is hoping for an increase in sales from Amazon.
Meanwhile, Amazon accelerated its push into fashion, opening two physical stores focused on fashion for the past few months while building its online presence, adding features such as Virtual shoe try-on. Augmented reality allows the user to see the kicks on their feet and from different angles.
