Amazon has introduced a shock transfer into the world of hairdressing with the opening of a hi-tech hair salon in London that boasts particular mirrors in a position to present prospects how they’d look with a unique hair color earlier than they make the leap.
With its promise to showcase the most recent in innovative expertise, the Amazon Salon in Spitalfields, east London, might consign hair dye swatch books to the dustbin of historical past with its augmented actuality mirrors. As properly as experimenting with digital appears, shoppers will probably be in a position to move time scrolling by magazines loaded on tablets positioned at every “styling station”.
Amazon is leaving the haircuts and highlights to the professionals with the salon manned by Neville Hair & Beauty, an unbiased salon primarily based in the capital. The everlasting salon will initially be road-tested by Amazon workers forward of opening up to the general public for appointments “in the approaching weeks”.
Customers can peruse magnificence merchandise on display. Photograph: Amazon Salon
A worth listing has but to be launched however Amazon Salon will supply a “full vary of hairdressing companies” together with highlights, therapies and braids, it mentioned. The salon is being billed by Amazon as an “experiential venue” to showcase new merchandise and expertise and, as but anyway, there are not any present plans for any others.
The transfer comes after the e-commerce giant launched knowledgeable magnificence part on its web site, promoting 10,000 merchandise starting from clippers to curlers and hair dryers, aimed on the small companies which have solely lately been allowed to reopen as lockdown restrictions are eased.
Amazon Salon comes scorching on the heels of the net retailer’s first contactless grocery retailer. The Amazon Fresh retailer which opened final month in Ealing, west London, can be utilized by anybody with an Amazon account and with the app on their cellphone. Customers should scan in a code on their cellphone to acquire entry.
Sensors on the cabinets detect when an merchandise has been eliminated whereas cameras and different expertise backed by synthetic intelligence monitor people’ motion across the retailer and the products chosen. The invoice is routinely charged to a consumer’s Amazon account after they depart the shop.
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John Boumphrey, Amazon’s UK supervisor, mentioned the hair salon had been designed in order that prospects might expertise the “finest expertise, haircare merchandise and stylists in the trade”.
“It will probably be a spot the place we are able to collaborate with the trade and take a look at new applied sciences,” he mentioned.
The salon will even check out new “point-and-learn” tech for salons, whereby prospects pointing merely at a product on a show shelf can view info, corresponding to model movies, performed on an accompanying show display. Shoppers will even find a way to purchase shampoos and styling aids for residence supply by scanning a barcode with their cellphone.
