Amazon Opens Hair Salon Where You Can Try Out Dyes Before Fully Committing
Image via Amazon
Apart from e-commerce, supermarkets and television services, Amazon is expanding its reaches into other countless industries—concertgoing included.
What the pandemic appears to show is that service- and experience-based businesses thrive since they can’t be replaced by online shopping. Although Amazon already has a leg up since it provides, well, online shopping, this is what the company seems to be aiming for with the hair salon that opened in London earlier this year.
Located in Spitalfields, East London, Amazon’s salon uses technology liberally to provide its customers with the “best in hair care and styling,” as the company claims.
At the salon, customers will be able to try out different hair colors virtually before choosing the final shade to dye. Although various Snapchat filters have offered something similar before, there probably haven’t been any that look almost as real as the ones Amazon is using.
Image via Amazon
While receiving hair treatment (from real people), customers can then browse entertainment on Amazon Fire tablets and enjoy music from Amazon Echo speakers before photographing the new look in a dedicated creative area.
Point-and-learn comes in through the display and merchandising of the products, which are touted as bestsellers.
“Customers can simply point at the product they are interested in on a display shelf and the relevant information, including brand videos and educational content, will appear on a display screen,” writes the company.
Image via Amazon
Not only that; customers interested in the products can easily place an order for them through a QR code to visit the product’s page on Amazon.
Hairdressers who work in the salon are employed by ELSL Hairdressing, a company run by salon-owner Elena Lavagni. The services they’ll provide include “cut and blow-dry, full head highlights, balayage, texturizer treatments, and braids,” all suitable for both adults and children.
As reported by Kate Duffy from Insider, the salon is strategically placed. Spitalfields has become more gentrified in the last few years and remains a popular hangout for hipsters and locals who are “more likely” to experiment with quirky hair colors and styles.
“We have designed this salon for customers to come and experience some of the best technology, hair care products and stylists in the industry,” states John Boumphrey, UK Country Manager at Amazon, in the press release.
Image via Amazon
“We want this unique venue to bring us one step closer to customers, and it will be a place where we can collaborate with the industry and test new technologies.”
Anna Russell reports for The New Yorker that the lockdowns that have steadfastly found their way into our “normal” lives have made people more likely to experiment in salons, which is in accordance with what Amazon has implemented in its own.
According to Russell’s hairstylist, customers have been more likely to take bigger risks with their hair due to spending more time at home.
Bangs, new colors, or a style that they may never have tried, knowing that they’d have to turn up to the office on Monday morning. Everyone appeared to be bored, and desired change.
“It’s a stylist’s dream,” she says.
[via Insider, images via Amazon]
Also check out these recent news
