Report: Amazon clothing sales fueling department store decline

SEATTLE — A series of painful earnings reports by department-store chains this month showed the surprising extent of a decline that experts say is being sped up by Amazon.com’s growing might as an apparel powerhouse.

Department stores, which sell a wide variety of apparel and accessories, have suffered as money-conscious consumers still reeling from the recession hunt for discounts at outlets or shop online.

But it’s online retailers, and particularly Seattle-based Amazon, that pose the biggest threat to department stores.

Analysts with Morgan Stanley report that online stores, led by Amazon, since 2005 have added almost as much yearly apparel revenue ($27.8 billion) as the $29.6 billion in sales that the department stores have lost.

Amazon, according to these analysts, is already the second largest seller of clothes in the U.S., after Wal-Mart, when counting merchandise sold on its platform by third parties.

As more U.S. households join Amazon’s Prime membership program and the company doubles down on its own fashion offerings, by 2020 the company could come to dominate nearly a fifth of U.S. apparel sales, up from about 7 percent today, these analysts estimate.

— AP