Amazon Will Let Customers Try On Clothes Before Buying<br />The service will be an option only for members of Amazon Prime, the company’s membership service, which, for<br />$99 a year, gives customers fast shipping at no extra charge, a streaming video service and other benefits.<br />On Tuesday morning, the company revealed a new program called Prime Wardrobe<br />that allows people to order clothing — from three to 15 items at a time — without actually buying it.<br />Prime Wardrobe will let customers try on more than a million items of clothing, accessories<br />and shoes from brands including Calvin Klein, Levi’s, Adidas, Hugo Boss and Lacoste without buying them.<br />By the end of this year, analysts expect that Amazon will become the largest apparel retailer in the United States,<br />at a time when many traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are closing stores or filing for bankruptcy.<br />The eyewear retailer Warby Parker has long let customers try on up to five pairs of<br />glasses at home for as long as five days, with no obligation to buy any of them.<br />It is hard to predict what impact this will have on the company’s clothing sales, but it follows a pattern at Amazon of eliminating so-called friction points to online shopping<br />that have made it surprisingly successful in the apparel category.
