Amazon's Prime Wardrobe turns your home into a fitting room

E-commerce behemoth Amazon introduced recently a new service that could be key in the company's pursuit of fashion apparel market dominance. The program called Prime Wardrobe, which is exclusive to Prime members, allows customers to try on clothing and other accessories before making a purchase. It is currently being tested in the US.

Buyers can place between three and 15 different items to be sent, free of charge, right at their doorsteps in a specially designed resealable box. Customers will then have the convenience of trying the items at home. They are given seven days to return unwanted pieces at a UPS location or schedule a free pick-up. Clients are charged only for the clothing that they keep.

Members will get a 10 percent discount if they purchase three or four items and 20 percent if five items or more pieces are bought.

A recent report by news website Business Insider revealed that although Amazon accounts for a sizable portion of the overall US apparel market, it sells mostly daily-use clothing and accessories, with undergarments, including socks, and shorts and pants as the top product categories. These are items that customers do not spend a lot of time trying on.

The top-performing apparel categories on Amazon in 2016, according to data gathered by One Click Retail, are men's bottoms, which raked in $375 million in sales, women's intimate apparel $250 million, women's denim $170 million and men's underwear $165 million.

"With Prime Wardrobe, Amazon can finally unlock the hardest sector of apparel to sell online and take over the fashion industry," Business Insider predicted.