Amazon’s convenient clothing try-on program ends this month. According to a banner message on the Amazon page, the company will end its “Prime Try Before You Buy” program on January 31, 2025. The program was not very popular and is no longer necessary in its current form.
The “Prime Try Before You Buy” program allowed customers to order up to six clothing items at once for trying on. Customers could request clothing in different sizes and decide which items to keep after trying them on. Payment or returns were due after a week.
According to CNBC, the discontinuation of the service is related to Amazon’s efforts to cut costs. In recent years, Amazon has responded to financial pressures with layoffs and store closures. The try-on service led to a high number of returns, drawing the attention of company controllers.
Amazon did not confirm this directly. Instead, spokesperson Maxine Tagay stated that the service is being discontinued because it worked only for a “limited number of items” and customers increasingly use Amazon’s new AI-powered features to decide what to purchase.
AI aims to make physical try-ons unnecessary. Tagay mentioned the example of virtual shoe try-ons via AR on smartphones, where 3D renderings of certain brand shoes can be projected onto feet using the phone’s camera. For size differences, AI-powered “personalized size recommendations” can be used. AI-supported customer feedback summaries and improved size charts also assist in decision-making. Recently, Amazon introduced its own AI shopping assistant named Rufus.
Amazon promises to continue offering fast, free shipping with easy, free returns for its entire clothing collection, despite ending the dedicated try-on program.
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