Page 24 - ARUBA TODAY

Thursday 22 June 2017 BUSINESS
A24

Amazon aiming to be the dressing room in your house

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO should have launched a last year to more than 16
AP Retail Writer subscription service a long percent by 2021.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon time ago, said internet con- With Prime Wardrobe, Am-
is hoping to claim more sultant Sucharita Mulpuru- azon’s bidding for more
territory once held by de- Kodal. loyalty from members of
partment stores, essentially “This is another attempt for the program who are al-
placing a dressing room in Amazon to win in apparel,” ready getting free shipping
your house. she said. “Why haven’t the as well as free streaming
The company, which has department stores done of TV shows and movies.
been making a big push this? It’s one of the reasons And it may be a way to get
into selling clothes, is test- why they are in trouble.” Prime shoppers who stuck
ing a new service that lets And Amazon’s vast logistics to buying electronics and
members of its Prime pro- system that can send pack- books to try buying clothes
gram try on styles before ages quickly to shoppers’ from Amazon without a lot
they put items on their home will make it easier for of hassle.
charge card — at no up- In this Tuesday, May 30, 2017, file photo, the Amazon logo is dis- the company to offer that Prime Wardrobe works this
front fee. Customers have played at the Nasdaq MarketSite, in New York’s Times Square. kind of service than its rivals way: Shoppers pick three
seven days to decide what Associated Press could do, Mulpuru-Kodal or more items and have a
they like, and then pay only said. She said, however, try-on period.
for what they keep. Ship- ion sellers offer— and even It also offers better terms it remains to be seen how Items they want to discard
ments arrive in a re-seal- from the usual way of buy- than some newer business- good the selection will be. can be dropped off at a
able box with a pre-paid ing clothes on Amazon. De- es. Amazon has made a con- UPS location or picked up
label for returns. partment store return poli- Subscription service Stitch certed push into fashion for free. Unlike Stitch Fix,
More than a million pieces cies for online orders can Fix, for instance, charges a through private labels like it doesn’t have a stylist to
of clothing and accessories be generous, but people styling fee of $20 and has Lark & Ro that often sell pick the items for custom-
are eligible, Amazon said don’t get to try things on a three-day limit for shop- for less than similar name- ers.
Tuesday, including from before buying. pers to return items. Stitch brand items. It’s poised to Shoppers get 10 percent
brands like Calvin Klein, That’s been an obstacle, Fix said it’s in a different surpass Macy’s this year off if they keep three or four
Hugo Boss, Theory and especially for customers business and its customers as the largest U.S. clothing items, or 20 percent off for
Levi’s that are big names at concerned about fit, to get “love having their very own seller, according to Cowen five items or more. Mulpu-
the department stores. shoppers to buy clothes on- personal stylist who does & Co. analysts. They ex- ru-Kodal says the discount
The program differs from line. The prepaid label is an the shopping for them.” pect Amazon to increase should be an incentive for
what department stores attempt to lessen the has- Department stores, which its share of the U.S. clothing shoppers to keep some of
like Macy’s and other fash- sle of generating one, the have been struggling as market from 6.6 percent the items. q
norm with Amazon returns. customers move online,
Energy stocks dive anew, offset

tech gains; U.S. indexes mixed

Benchmark U.S. crude lost price of oil. “If we get be- ucts for the company, such
98 cents, or 2.3 percent, to low $40, I think you’ll get as leather.
settle at $42.53 per barrel. people adjusting their ex- In overseas markets, the
Brent crude, the interna- pectations.” Shanghai composite rose
tional standard, fell $1.20, Energy stocks in the S&P 0.5 percent after index pro-
or 2.6 percent, to $44.82 a 500 tumbled 1.6 percent, vider MSCI said it will include
barrel. a day after falling 1.2 per- 222 of what are called Chi-
The price of oil has now cent. They are down nearly nese A-shares in its widely
dropped more than 20 15 percent for the year, followed Emerging Markets
percent this year, break- when the overall S&P 500 is index. The move, which will
Trader Peter Tuchman works on the floor of the New York Stock ing into what traders call a up 8.8 percent.
Exchange, Wednesday, June 21, 2017. begin next year, will likely
Associated Press bear market. How much of Red Hat, an open-source cause big shifts of money
an impact that will have on software company, surged into mainland Chinese
By STAN CHOE the Nasdaq composite most 401(k) accounts will to one of the biggest gains stocks by mutual funds and
AP Business Writer rose 45.92, or 0.7 percent to depend on how much it in the index after report- other investors that track
NEW YORK (AP) — Ener- 6,233.95. undercuts energy compa- ing better-than-expected the index.
gy stocks dove again on “The story truly is energy nies’ profits, and whether earnings for its latest quar- MSCI has been consider-
Wednesday as oil dropped right now,” said JJ Kinahan, the pain will spill into other ter. Its forecast for revenue ing including A-shares in
to its lowest price since last chief market strategist at areas of the market. and earnings this fiscal year its index for years but had
summer, extending their TD Ameritrade. Accelerating corporate also topped analysts’ ex- demurred until now due to
dismal start to the year. Crude dropped for a third profits and expectations pectations. Its stock rose a range of concerns, such
Gains for health care and straight day and touched that they’ll continue have $8.62, or 9.6 percent, to
technology stocks helped its lowest price since Au- been a big reason for the $98.58. as how inaccessible they
hem in losses for broader gust on expectations that stock market’s rise this year, La-Z-Boy jumped $5.80, were for foreign investors.
market indexes. supplies of oil will far out- and energy companies or 22.1 percent, to $32.00 China has since started a
The Standard & Poor’s 500 weigh demand. had been forecast to pro- after reporting quarterly “Stock Connect” program
index dipped 1.42 points, Even a report showing that vide some of the biggest earnings that easily topped that links mainland Chinese
or 0.1 percent, to 2,435.61. the amount of supplies in gains. analysts’ expectations. Its stocks with the Hong Kong
The Dow Jones industrial U.S. inventories shrank last “We’re in the warning area customers have been shift- market to make them more
average fell 57.11, or 0.3 week did little to alter the here, between $40 and ing toward higher-priced accessible, among other
percent, to 21,410.03, and tide. $44,” Kinahan said of the and more profitable prod- changes.q