Amazon Moves Into London Hair Care With Augmented Reality Tools

Amazon, the world’s biggest eCommerce marketplace, is moving into the London hair care space with two-floor salons that offer augmented reality (AR) tools for consultations and point-and-learn technology.

The new hair salon concept — Amazon Salon — is intended to open a physical space in London’s East End Spitalfields area. The AR app will offer customers a way to see how different hairstyles and colors will look on their faces, according to a press release on Tuesday (April 20).

The new salon being piloted in London will take up more than two floors to enable customers to experience the best in hair care and styling. The more than 1,500 square-foot facility located on Brushfield Street will also offer point-and-learn technology to facilitate hair consultations.

Amazon Salon

Amazon Salon will offer a selection of boutique offerings for hair by Elena Lavagni, owner of Neville Hair & Beauty, an independent salon based in London. Further, the salon will give customers the ability to use AR to try virtual hair colors.

“We have designed this salon for customers to come and experience some of the best technology, hair care products and stylists in the industry,” said John Boumphrey, UK Country Manager, 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.”

Showcasing a selection of professional haircare products, the Amazon Salon will also test new point-and-learn technology to enable customers to point and click at the product they want. A digital window will offer a display screen pointing to the shelf and the relevant information, including brand videos and educational content. 

Customers can place orders by scanning the relevant QR code on the shelf to visit the product detail page. Orders can be placed with one click and users can then decide delivery or pickup

The new Amazon Salon will launch for Amazon employees only, before opening to the public for bookings, which is expected to happen in the weeks ahead.

Hair salons were one of many physical retail segments that suffered a dramatic fall-out of revenues due to the coronavirus pandemic. The most popular beauty items for purchase — hair clippers, hair dyes and nail polish — have seen sales surge both online and in those stores that remained open.

Although DIY spending in the U.S. for health and beauty sales surged 13 percent — or roughly $3.7 billion — from June 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. Much of that spike has come from digital sales, which surged 31 percent year on year to $9.28 billion.