Amazon Prime Shoppers Can Now Fall into The Gap

Fashionistas who find their groove at Gap stores and outlets can now turn to Amazon for their Gap-style upgrade.

After years of pressure from consumers and investors alike, The Gap (GPS) has fallen into the Amazon fold, selling via Amazon’s Amazon Fashion site. There, shoppers can find collections of clothing and accessories for adults and teens as well as children and babies – even nursery furniture and home goods.

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This comes a year after Gap began partnering with Walmart, selling bedding, furniture and home goods. 

“Collaborating with Amazon Fashion provides us a new channel to deliver Gap’s modern American essentials to even more customers in the U.S. and Canada," said Mark Breitbard, President and CEO, Gap brand, in a press release. “We are excited to take this step with Amazon Fashion, to expand our product offering and to deepen our connection with consumers through the Gap brand store.” 

The move is a win for Gap, allowing it to reach more shoppers, as there are far fewer Gap stores and outlets than there were pre-internet. Gap came of age during the 1970s, when its primary focus in clothing was stocking Levi's jeans (along with um, yes, records and cassettes and a memorable jingle).

Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at GlobalData, a consulting firm, told the website Modern Retail, “Gap’s sales volume has been falling, and the brand is losing market share. Rebuilding this through its stores and website is proving difficult. Opening [a] store on Amazon is another route to market and, theoretically, exposes Gap to a lot more shoppers as Amazon has a lot of traffic to the fashion part of its site. Gap will be hoping for a sales boost from Amazon.”

Meanwhile, Amazon has been accelerating its push into fashion, opening two physical stores focused on fashion in the last few months while beefing up its online presence, adding features including Virtual Try-On for Shoes. Augmented reality lets the user see the kicks on their feet and from various angles.