Amazon opens first fashion studio in India
The 44,000 sq. ft. studio, called BLINK, in Gurugram includes 16 photography bays, and is Amazon's third such facility in the world
New Delhi: Amazon India on Wednesday unveiled the Amazon Fashion Studio in Gurugram, a facility that offers allied services such as high-quality catalogue imaging to fashion sellers on Amazon.in.
The studio, called BLINK, is Amazon’s third such facility in the world—the company has one each in London and New York. The 44,000 sq. ft. studio in Gurugram includes 16 photography bays, a ramp and a presentation area along with enclosed workspaces for Amazon teams and fashion sellers to collaborate on creative content.
The studio serves as an extension to Amazon’s imaging and cataloguing services, a global business vertical that gives retailers access to low-cost photography solutions for their products.
The Seattle-based company operates 35 photo studios across 14 countries, with four out of five of those in India housed in fulfilment centres, said Josh Watson, director of Amazon Global Imaging Studios.
“It’s (the Gurugram studio) a very exciting space for imaging, video content and a space where we will collaborate with brands to ensure that this is the next in the Fashion journey for us in India,” said Arun Sirdeshmukh, head of Amazon Fashion India.
Besides photo- and video-shoots, the studio includes resources to create editorial content. Fashion brands can hire the studio to create multimedia content for new collections or simply trends videos they may like to push through their marketing channels.
The studio can also serve as the venue for the launch of a new collection by a brand or for fashion events, Sirdeshmukh added.
“We have photographers, models, stylists, video editors, and other resources. We are constantly looking at new ways of collaboration,” he said.
The move indicates Amazon.in’s increased focus on fashion, a category that has swiftly grown to feature among the top three in the Amazon marketplace.
With smartphone penetration, especially in non-urban cities, and the power to display vast product collections, online fashion e-commerce is expected to go from $7-9 billion currently to $30 billion in 2020, a recent report by The Boston Consulting Group and Facebook said.
Amazon claims it leads this category in terms of selection in India. Over the last eight months, Amazon.in added 50 international fashion labels to its list of 15,000 which includes Forever 21, Marks & Spencer and Calvin Klein, the company said. It is also luring brands into featuring their new season collections first on Amazon.
“We run several businesses under the Amazon Fashion umbrella; there is jewellery, footwear, clothing, accessories and luggage and so on. Each of those businesses, quarter on quarter grow between 80-100%, while growth in H1 (first half of 2017) was 90% (for the entire fashion category),” Sirdeshmukh said.
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First Published:13 Sep 2017, 06:30 PM IST
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