Amazon’s foray into hair

RACHEL LERMAN

E-commerce goliath opening a tech-heavy salon with UK stylist

WASHINGTON POST

SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon is opening a hair salon in London, its latest push from online to brick-and-mortar — and a move that allows it to collect more real-world consumer data in the meantime.

The e-commerce giant is opening a new tech-heavy hair salon in partnership with a prominent U.K. stylist. The salon will include tablets at every chair, a screen to virtually “try on” hair colors and a station to display information about different products when a customer physically points at them, Amazon said in a news release. The salon is only open to employees to start — a traditional Amazon strategy.

Close observers of the company speculate that it could be a play by Amazon to continue its foray into computer vision, a technology it already uses to track shoppers in its Amazon Go convenience stores.

This endeavor is a bit “baffling,” said Sucharita Kodali, a principal analyst at Forrester. Hair styling is highly personal — not Amazon’s strength, she said. And artisan industries do not always lend themselves to becoming high tech, she added.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.

Amazon spokesperson Harry Staight said the company is working with brands from the salon world for the studio.

Over the past few years, Amazon has carefully pushed into brick-and-mortar retail, after spending decades training customers to shop online. It built a physical bookstore in Seattle and now has about two dozen locations.

It purchased Whole Foods in 2017, adding a few hundred retail locations. It’s built pop-up stores and 4-Star stores, which sell highly ranked items from the online site.

It’s also pushed into hightech groceries. Its Go convenience- style store scans customers’ phones when they enter, then uses sensors and cameras throughout the store to track shoppers and automatically detect which items they are picking up. They walk out without checking out, and the app charges them for what they purchased. Amazon is also rolling out Amazon Go Grocery in Seattle.

At the new salon, customers can check out hair colors through augmented reality before they commit to a dye, then settle into a chair with a Fire tablet. The salon will include walls of products with QR codes that display more information and, presumably, purchase options.