When Becky Barr was little, she memorized her mother’s credit card number and dialed into QVC to buy presents. She would then inform her bemused mom that even though the credit card was still in her pocketbook at work, a new watch was on its way.
Decades later, Ms. Barr, of Etna, is on a first-name basis with the UPS driver who delivers her QVC orders not only to her home but also to her office.
“He knows if I’m not in one place, he’ll bring it to me [at the other],” Ms. Barr said, adding that on a good week, she makes multiple purchases. “It’s one of those things, ‘You know you have a problem when …’”
Ms. Barr is one of scores of Pittsburgh-area shoppers who were shocked to learn earlier this month that QVC, Liberty Interactive’s home shopping television network, is merging with its longtime rival, the Home Shopping Network.
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QVC, which already owned a 38 percent stake in HSN, announced the $2.1 billion deal on July 6.
The merger comes at a moment of shake-ups in the retail world, with companies like Amazon and Walmart expanding their e-commerce capabilities as many brick-and-mortar chains struggle. USA Today calculated that the combined companies ranked sixth in global e-commerce sales in 2016, trailing behind retailers like Amazon and Apple.
Uniting the networks strengthens them as a collective home shopping resource, but the two have very different profiles.
HSN got its start in Florida in 1977 when a radio station owner decided to auction off more than a hundred electric can openers over the air, leading to the creation of the “Suncoast Bargaineers” radio show. QVC — which stands for Quality Value Convenience — launched in 1986 in West Chester, Pa.
The two networks appealed to shoppers nationally. The first item QVC sold — an $11.49 shower radio — reached nearly 8 million homes in 1986 and brought in more than $110 million in sales during the year.
But viewership has decreased for both networks as a new generation of consumers turns to online shopping. While QVC still tapes in front of a live studio audience, both networks have added digital platforms like websites and apps.
QVC.com launched just over two decades ago, and nearly 58 percent of its e-commerce sales are now from mobile phones. The network also started streaming live programming on Facebook last year, which it said has reached 15 million people. HSN reported last year that digital efforts made up about 54 percent of its business.
Loyal customers watch merger
A seemingly endless stream — QVC broadcasts 24 hours a day, 364 days a year — of pitches for cosmetics, exercise gear, jewelry and clothing -— complete with hands-on demonstrations, bantering hosts and lots of “oohs” and “aahs” — can make for good parody, but also good publicity.
Celebrities like Marie Osmond, Rachael Ray, Lisa Rinna and Nicole Richie have appeared on the networks, and hosts and presenters can claim a similar status when it comes to name recognition from their loyal viewers.
QVC and HSN have also spawned fan communities. One private 7,260-member Facebook group called QVC Beauty Addicts formed over three years ago as a space for customers to post beauty product reviews, questions and deal alerts.
Ms. Barr is a part of it. So are Jan Aiello of Jeannette and Siobhan Huck of Cranberry.
And even as they wait to see what the merger means for them, members of this community have very definite opinions about the two networks.
Separate identities
For many loyal customers, the merger raises questions about convenience — some brands are specific to one network — and identity, as shoppers say QVC and HSN each have their own personality.
“It’s going to be a wait-and-see thing, if they’re going to keep separate identities,” said Ms. Aiello, who has shopped with QVC since 1995 and with HSN for more than a decade. “I would hope they would, because they each offer different things and each have positives and negatives.”
Ms. Aiello said she has always considered QVC to be a bigger corporation and a more professional network, while HSN used to look like it was “broadcasting out of somebody’s living room or something.” She believes HSN has better customer service and is quicker with returns. And it sends out 20-percent-off coupons.
On average, Ms. Aiello buys from QVC about once a week and from HSN a few times a month, but she orders almost daily during the holidays.
Times have changed since she placed her first orders — a Smashbox eye shadow palette from QVC and a Perlier bath set from HSN. Around 2005, she switched from watching sales pitches on TV and calling in orders over the phone to sending orders from her laptop.
By the time she installed the home shopping apps on her phone around 2014, she was barely watching the networks on TV.
“I don’t watch it on TV — I mostly skim through my iPhone to see what they’ve had on,” she said. “It’s funny how something can be a flop on one station and on the next station it takes off.”
Unlike Ms. Aiello, Ms. Barr shops only with QVC. She was put off years ago by the way HSN would change its prices during the countdown clock.
She has noticed that often, brands flip back and forth between the two networks. She said it is not uncommon for a line of products that has been carried on HSN to disappear and resurface on QVC and vice versa.
For example, Smashbox Cosmetics and Birkenstock shoes can now be found only on HSN.
Ms. Barr is not worried that brand identities and specific products will get lost in the merger. In fact, she predicted the merger would open up doors for shoppers like herself who order from only one network and might be missing out on items offered on the other.
“I only think it would be a positive thing for everyone, to be honest,” she said.
Ms. Huck, who shops with QVC and HSN, questions what the deal means for the distinct benefits each network offers.
While both allow shoppers to pay for items in installments through Easy Pay and FlexPlay options and have reduced shipping costs, only HSN offers discounted shipping if multiple orders are placed in a single day.
And it remains to be seen whether any relationships with brands will be terminated.
“What are they going to take away and what are they going to keep?” Ms. Huck wondered. “HSN can be a nice change from QVC — it would be unfortunate if they became too similar or obsolete altogether.”
Home shoppers take to Facebook
All three women found out about the QVC-HSN merger through the Beauty Addicts page, where news articles and reaction posts “lit up” the group in a mix of positive and negative responses.
Ms. Huck described it as “very interactive” and said people post questions, often asking for general recommendations or specific reviews.
Ms. Barr offered to be one of the group’s administrators, approving people’s requests to join and moderating posts. She said the group usually gets a couple of new members each day, with a surge of requests whenever a QVC host mentions the page — as many as 44 in a single day recently.
While posters are reminded to be respectful, Ms. Barr said arguments occasionally occur because people feel strongly about particular products. In one recent hairy situation, group members argued about a shampoo that some loved, while some claimed it caused hair loss.
“What I like about our group is it’s not all sunshine and rainbows,” Ms. Barr said. “If they don’t like it, they want you to know.”
Ms. Aiello is a member of several other groups, including a Beauty Addicts spinoff called Q-ool Chicks. In this group, she has gotten to know a lot of women whom she has not needed to meet in person to earn the label of close friends.
“I feel like they’re like my best friends almost, because we have shared a lot of things, not just beauty,” Ms. Aiello said.
She added that Facebook, unlike online product reviews, allows consumers to take the reviewer’s age and skin type into consideration.
Following the merger announcement, the group saw an influx of posts about the uncertainty that accompanies the QVC-HSN deal for loyal shoppers nationwide.
“There are people thinking like me that it could be a good thing and it’s too soon to really react,” Ms. Aiello said. “I’m somebody who likes change most of the time … so it’s kind of exciting to see where this is going to go. And I think there’s been some other people that feel the same way — it could be something beneficial to all of us.”
While no one knows exactly what the deal is yet, home shopping enthusiasts agree: Only time will tell.
Date:July 24, 2017