Dive Brief:
- Amazon on Monday launched a fashion storefront featuring Drew Barrymore's new "Dear Drew," the actress's first apparel line, according to a press released emailed to Retail Dive by Amazon Fashion.
- The line includes apparel, accessories (including jewelry, scarves and handbags), hair tools and luggage, with prices ranging from $28 to $248, the company said.
- Barrymore's "Flower" beauty line, once exclusive to Walmart, is now also sold through its own website and other retailers internationally.
Dive Insight:
Amazon continues to flex its fashion muscles, this time with a high-profile launch of a celebrity's collection.
"We’re delighted to be teaming up [with] Drew Barrymore to debut her new brand on Amazon Fashion,” Amazon Fashion Director Kate Dimmock said in a statement emailed to Retail Dive. “Drew’s impressive career and creative energy is an inspiration, and we’re thrilled to be able to offer our customers a collection that embodies her free-spirited style.”
The new Drew Barrymore line eclipses her tie-up with Walmart four years ago, which placed her lower-priced Flower cosmetics line exclusively at that big box retailer. Since then she has expanded Flower, and little mention is made of her Walmart relationship on that brand's Facebook page.
For Amazon, the move is yet another grab at department store and mass merchant mainstays. Starting last year, the e-commerce giant has launched a series of private label clothing and accessories brands in various sub-categories, most recently in footwear. The company is also experimenting with various sales and delivery models, including a new apparel subscription service (currently in beta), Prime Wardrobe.
Those efforts appear to be paying off. Sales of youth apparel on Amazon were up 61% in the first two weeks of the July-September back-to-school shopping season, compared to the same two weeks in 2016, according to One Click Retail. The research firm previously found that Amazon’s apparel sales grew by 25% in 2016, to a value of $3.4 billion. Meanwhile, shoe sales grew even more, at 35%, bringing Amazon's shoe sales last year to $1.6 billion.
Apparel brands must pay attention to Amazon’s efforts as it continues to sign up brands and market its own labels, according to research from digital insights firm L2. On Prime Day, for the first time, Amazon’s private label brands Mae (lingerie), Goodthreads (men’s dress shirts), Lark & Ro (women’s dresses) and Buttoned Down (men’s dress shirts) landed in Amazon’s Best Seller rankings in their categories, driven by full-screen visibility on Prime Day’s fashion landing pages, according to L2.
In fact, and alarmingly for brands, Amazon’s Fashion landing page on Prime Day this year exclusively featured private label products, the research found. And those private labels maintained much of their momentum after Prime Day.
That’s hardly going to stop, either. "Amazon’s private label brands were the main beneficiaries of Prime Day, suggesting that in the future there will be fewer opportunities for legacy brands to capitalize on busy Amazon shopping days," L2 said in its report. Brands should expect the holidays to be another time when Amazon promotes its own labels, L2 added.
