Amazon’s “Prime Wardrobe” Lets Customers Try Clothing Before Buying

One of the biggest problems with ordering clothing online is that you can’t actually try on items before you buy them. Amazon seems to think it has the answer in its new Prime Wardrobe offering that sends a box full of clothes for customers to try out before actually buying them… but you’ll still have to deal with the hassle of returning the items if they don’t work out.

Amazon debuted Tuesday its latest Prime Membership benefit, which will include giving customers’ closets a clothing makeover via Prime Wardrobe.

The service is currently in beta testing and only available to those who have been invited by the e-commerce company, the Seattle Times reports.

Through the Prime Wardrobe, customers can order clothing, shoes, and accessories at no upfront change, take seven days to decide what they want to keep, and send back the rest for free. Shoppers will only pay for the pieces of clothing they choose to keep.

This charge, Amazon says, will depend on the specific items and how many items a person purchases. For example, if customers decide to keep three or four items in their order, they’ll receive 10% off, if they keep five or more items, the discount climbs to 20%.

As for the items customers don’t want, Amazon says the Wardrobe box is resealable and comes with a pre-paid label. The returns can be dropped off at a UPS location or picked up for free.

Amazon says that Prime Wardrobe has nearly one million eligible items in its virtual closet, ranging from brands like Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, and others.

This isn’t Amazon’s first foray into providing fashion for customers. The company, which already offers a wealth of clothing options, has reportedly been working on its own line of workout apparel to go along with its private label clothing brand launched in 2016.

Back in April, the company debuted Echo Look, a $200 camera that lets complete strangers judge your outfits. This “Style Check” service comes with the Look camera. Amazon claims it uses “advanced machine learning algorithms and advice from fashion specialists” to judge you more objectively.

The concept behind Prime Wardrobe also isn’t new, as clothing subscription boxes — like StitchFix and TrunkClub — have long offered customers the option to trying on clothing and returning what they don’t want. The main difference, however, is that most of those service require an upfront flat fee that is either non-refundable or goes toward the cost of the clothing.

by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist