What: Amazon enters Italian physical retail with Milan beauty store launch, combining digital innovation and personalized services while expanding European beauty offerings.

Why it is important: This launch demonstrates how e-commerce giants are leveraging physical retail spaces to create immersive beauty experiences while expanding their market presence in Europe.

Amazon has opened its first physical retail space in Milan, introducing the Amazon Parafarmacia & Beauty concept on February 12, 2025. The store features two distinct areas: the Main Gallery, showcasing beauty and personal care products alongside dermatologist-endorsed items, and the Derma Bar, offering digital skin analysis and expert consultations. Interactive technology, including Place & Learn Stations that activate product information videos, enhances the customer experience. The store offers brands such as Eucerin, La Roche-Posay, Vichy, and Avène, with professional pharmacists providing advice on non-prescription medications. This physical expansion supports Amazon's broader European strategy, with plans to extend its beauty and personal care offerings across its online stores in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK throughout the year.

IADS Notes: Amazon's launch of its first physical Parafarmacia & Beauty store in Milan represents a significant evolution in its retail strategy after closing several physical stores in the pas years. This move also aligns with broader industry trends, where department stores revamped their beauty departments. The store's combination of digital technology and personalized services mirrors successful transformations by traditional retailers, as demonstrated by Rinascente's October 2024 beauty retail expansion targeting Gen Z consumers. The integration with Amazon's broader European e-commerce strategy, particularly the planned expansion of beauty offerings across Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and UK, reflects how retailers are creating seamless connections between physical and digital beauty retail experiences, similar to Selfridges' successful beauty hall transformation in May 2024.

Amazon launches first brick-and-mortar store in Italy