Sunday, November 21, 2010

Who Needs QVC on TV When We Have the Internet?

Apparently, it's a synergistic relationship, sorta like the relationship between physical libraries and their digital branches.  Not a perfect analogy, admittedly, since QVC isn't considered a 'bricks-and-mortar' operation, but I'm stickin' with it for now.


Link to November 21 New York Times article, "Can QVC Translate Its Pitch Online?"

Excerpt: But Mr. [Michael] George [chief executive] said he had an epiphany of sorts after he was approached to join the company about five years ago: QVC’s strong points — direct feedback from customers, limited-time offers and live sales data — were the Internet’s strong points, too.

Over the last few years, QVC has been fine-tuning its Web site and offering mobile phone, interactive-television and iPad apps.

It has also added exclusive products from reality stars like Kim Kardashian and Rachel Zoe, along with expensive products like $5,000 high-definition televisions. Today, QVC.com, a once-negligible part of the QVC empire, accounts for about a third of QVC’s domestic revenue.


In the third quarter, QVC had revenue of $1.8 billion, up 7 percent from the same period a year earlier. That is more than two and a half times the revenue of HSN, its closest competitor. And about a third of QVC’s sales now come through the Internet rather than television.

Source:  "In So Many Words:  How Technology Reshapes the Reading Habit."
Just as it changes our shopping habits.  (But not overnight.)  We still have shopping on TV (QVC revenue: $1,200,000,000) in an age of shopping online (QVC revenue: $600,000,000).

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