The online retailer is going to be competing with Nike and Under Armour in the activewear market. by Jason Del Ray
Source: Amazon plans to sell its own line of workout clothes – Recode
@IBD_Low (Elaine Low) shared this article from Recode and it immediately caught my eye and reminded me of something I heard from Scott Galloway at L2, “Amazon is your frenemy,” or something like that. It may have been about Facebook, but Amazon and Facebook are both the same pimp.
What do I mean? A while back I wrote an article (on kicks of course) where I used data from my online shop to analyze why people saying sneakerheads don’t matter were wrong.
How NPD’s Matt Powell Could Be Wrong About Sneakerheads
In this discussion Matt Powell and Josh Luber provided details on the resale market of “hyped” shoes based on incomplete data. The data was based primarily on eBay sellers. I explain in this article that I’m not an eBay seller. I’m an Amazon seller and that I’m one of the smaller Amazon marketplace accounts. As a 1 man team, according to the data that Luber used on his chart, and Powell referenced, during that year I would have been the number three seller in resale at half a million dollars per year. Like I said, I was one of the smaller marketplaces on Amazon and I would have still finished at 3 on their list. So I did my own research and found that their numbers were wrong and that the sneaker resale market is much bigger than they accounted.
Doing that research and understanding my time on Amazon as one of the smallest, but best sellers there for over 6 years, and also launching my own footwear line with my own cash (and in the wrong way, but that’s another story), I realized that if Amazon wanted to they could do what they have already done with the amount of data on sales available to them. They could disrupt any market for an item sold on Amazon.
I’m including the data from the inside of my dashboard for you to view. (I’m working on a Nike basketball post so I have it ready for a screenshot.) Okay you can see that I had a rough year (Thanks Nike Basketball), but the point is I have all of this at my disposal via Amazon.
Now take this data and realize that all of the people who own marketplace stores on Amazon have this at their disposal, which means Amazon has this at their disposal and you realize the company that now has the ability to take an order by voice (Echo) has removed the last barrier of click through in e-commerce and they have all of the stats on how to price Athletic Apparel and what apparel sells the best and what do you get?
Amazon is moving into Clothing. Amazon is moving into Grocery Stores. Amazon is moving into Brick and Mortar bookstores. Amazon is selling crack. Amazon is a pimp and if you don’t understand what I’m saying… here is the spokesperson for Amazon:
