Amazon Clothes-out Site

By George Anderson

Consumers that have bought products from Amazon.com received an email from
the company’s chairman and founder, Jeff Bezos, yesterday.

“For almost a year, we’ve been working on a new effort which we’ve internally
called ‘Ruby.’ Ruby is almost ready for its public unveiling. But, before we
release it broadly, we wanted to give our best customers a chance to try it
first (warts and all) and give us feedback.”

Ruby (http://www.amazon.com/ruby) is the beta test of Amazon’s new clothing and accessories store that includes apparel from well-known retailers such as The Gap, Nordstrom’s, Lands’ End, Target, Jos. A Bank, Eddie Bauer and Foot Locker. Amazon claims to have over 400 major brands on its clothing site.

Consumers that go to the beta site (not currently accessible from Amazon’s public page) and spend at least $50 will get a certificate for $30 to spend towards the purchase of new products sold on the Amazon.com web site.

Moderator’s Comment: What are your thoughts on Amazon.com
selling clothes and accessories?

We found the going slow on the site and never seriously
considered making a purchase because of that. Assuming it draws Amazon-like
traffic this holiday season (and it will), this could spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E (our
thanks to Travis Tritt) for Amazon and its clothing and accessories partners.
[George
Anderson – Moderator]