A tsunami of home shopping programs is about to hit cable, taking us one step farther toward interactive TV.
Imagine clicking on the tube, finding a home shopping program featuring an outfit you like, punching in your size, height,weight and favorite color and then watching how the ensemble drapes and moves on a model with your body specifications.
Sound like “The Jetsons” come to life? Although it isn’t available on your living room set yet, it’s in the foreseeable future.
Home shopping pioneers are splashing the tube with the next generation of electronic retailing. The spectrum of products that are or will be available is often of much higher quality than you might expect and will include everything from fashion and furniture to frozen food.
New programs vying for viewers include:
– MTV Networks will begin testing home shopping programs on each of its three networks, MTV, VH-1 and Nickelodeon, later this month. CDs, concert tour merchandise and fashion will be offered.
– Q2, a new division of QVC Network Inc., will begin airing weekend lifestyle shows May 21, offering health and beauty, fitness and style products. Q2 will share cable channel space with On Q, another QVC division, which began airing March 21; it’s on nine hours a week Monday through Friday. Contemporary sportswear is sold on this show. The new shows will be aimed at a more physically active audience than QVC.
– TV Macy’s will begin test marketing this fall. The full launch of its 24-hour shopping channel is set for next spring.
– Spiegel-Time Warner began testing Catalog 1, a 24-hour network with eight upscale direct-mail retailers including Spiegel, Neiman Marcus, Williams-Sonoma, the Nature Company and Sharper Image, in four markets around the nation last month.
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– MaxMusic, the new venture of musician John Oates of Hall and Oates fame, began testing its electronic record store concept in 12 million households April 16. A full roll-out is anticipated for May.
Though programmers for most of these services claim to be “interactive” because viewers can call in and place orders or even talk to a host, Time Warner Cable’s new Full Service Network is interactive in the truest sense.
This program, which will be aired in Orlando during the fourth quarter of this year, will showcase 20,000 products from Winn-Dixie, the Sunbelt’s largest supermarket retailer, and 7,500 items from Eckerd Drug Co., the largest drug store chain in the Southeast. Clothing from Spiegel, Eddie Bauer and Warner Bros. also will be sold.
Using hand-held remote controls, viewers will be able to shop in graphic supermarkets examining products in various sizes and different brands.
“Take, for example, frozen dinners. You might see Stouffers Lean Cuisine Swedish Meatballs. You’d pull that package off the shelf, rotate it, read the preparation instructions and ingredients,” says Michael Luftman, vice president of corporate communications for Time Warner Cable. If it’s ordered before 10 a.m., it will be delivered to you that evening between 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. in specially designed coolers.
You’ll also be able to visit an auto mall from your living room and arrange a time for a test drive. But before you go, you’ll be informed about the performance data figures of the vehicle and the price. Ordering stamps from the U.S. Postal Service will be a breeze through interactive TV too.
Home Shopping Network Inc. and QVC (Quality Value Convenience) deserve credit for pioneering home shopping, which is still in its infancy.
QVC is the world’s largest electronic retailer, reaching 50 million homes in the United States. It was started in 1986 and seven years later had a $1.2 billion gross revenue for 1993. Home Shopping Network, or HSN, began on national cable TV in 1985. It reaches 60 million households, and had slightly more than $1 billion gross revenue last year.
“(QVC is making a) compound annual rate of about 20 percent in sales and there’s no area of retailing that has had that type of double-digit growth in the last five years. That’s spectacular,” says Alan Millstein, publisher of Fashion Network Report, a New York-based financial newsletter.
Even the world’s top designers are considering the new channels of distribution. Karl Lagerfeld, for instance, is meeting with representatives of Q2 in Paris. If the designer signs a deal with Q2, he will appear on-air to sell his clothing, according to Women’s Wear Daily.
Calvin Klein has been swamped with requests to lend his clout to home shopping programs.
“This is a time for me to watch and wait and see how it all develops. It’s early for interactive,” says Klein. “But I think getting directly to people in new ways is the future.”
MTV Networks is ready to take an electronic retailing ride.
“Only 8 percent of the people who have cable have ever bought anything from HSN, or QVC,” says Mark Rosenthal, executive vice president for MTV Networks. “If there’s going to be a second wave (of home shopping), we’re going to have to find a way to attract the other 92 percent.”
MTV Networks, which is available in more than 60 million homes, will hawk its music-related goods in half-hour or hour-long shows a total of four hours a week on each network. The testing will last six months. If the MTV home shopping programming takes off, a fourth, separate network will be formed.
QVC has recently spun off two new divisions, On Q and Q2. On Q is for a trend-driven customer.
“It’s aimed at 18 to 35 with `MTV-like,’ funky clothes, cool clothes, hip things,” says Amy Jackson, QVC spokesperson. The average QVC customer is 50 or older.
“Q2”, which has Diane Von Furstenberg as it’s creative director and targets active men and women ages 18 to 44, will feature brand name merchandise from seven lifestyle categories.
TV Macy’s focus groups have indicated convenience, brand name merchandise and a nationally renowned retailer are the top three elements customers want most from a home shopping experience. All this blended with a dash of entertainment will be part of Macy’s mix.
“We intend to use the same merchandise we have in our stores, it’s really as if we’re opening a new store,” says Laura Melillo, Macy’s vice president.
But electronic retailing is still so young, growing pains are very much a part of the picture. Saks Fifth Avenue, for instance, has had five appearances on QVC over the last year. It’s sixth, and possibly last, appearance is May 22.
The store got a rude awakening when many viewers ordered its “washable silks,” then tossed them into washing machines with heavy detergent and bleach, not foreseeing the crumpled messes that would result. A simple rinse in cold water is all that’s recommended. A lot of the silks were returned.
And when working women ordered merchandise but weren’t home to receive the deliveries, more items were returned.
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