Amazon's private label takes aim at the fashion industry

You might buy a suit from Amazon, but would you buy a suit made by Amazon? The company has reportedly launched seven private label fashion brands and up to 1,800 new products ranging from men's suits to women's accessories to children's clothing. Its own trademarked brands include Franklin & Freeman, Franklin Tailored, North Eleven, Scout + Ro and Society New York. The brands, which were first spotted by an analyst and reported by fashion site WWD, seem to be moderately priced -- a men's suit costs around $300, for instance.

Trademark searches reveal that Amazon owns the trademarks on the brands, and it recently posted job listings hinting that it may start its own clothing line. It does make sense, as Quartz points out. Amazon's margins are slim on electronics and other popular product categories, but the company makes a 40 percent average profit on apparel. The downside is that only 15 percent of Amazon's active customers ever buy clothing and accessories on the site.

Amazon has partnered with fashion brands like LaCoste, Camper and DKNYC. However, the company's VP of fashion, Jeff Yurcisin, said at a retail clothing show last year that "when we see gaps, when certain brands have actually decided for their own reasons not to sell with us, our customer still wants a product like that." For that point of view, we'd expect many of Amazon's private label products to be in the same style as certain name brands.

So far, Amazon hasn't promoted the venture, but given the relatively low number of users that purchase apparel, it will no doubt have to ramp up its marketing. Before all that, however, it will first have to acknowledge that it even exists -- as such, we've reached out for more information and will update the post if we learn anything new.