As seen on TV

It’s all too easy to think of multichannel selling as a combination of print, online and web channels. But this ignores another route to market—TV shopping. Selling on TV is by no means a new concept. QVC, for example, launched a UK channel in 1993, while Ideal Shopping Direct started airing the Ideal World channel in 2000. Far from being outmoded, TV-shopping is a growing medium. International sales at QVC, which include sales made by its UK, Italy, Germany and Japan divisions, rose 8 percent during 2010 to $2.6 billion (approximately £1.61 billion). Although it doesn’t specifically break figures into territories, QVC does say that sales in its Japanese division exceeded $1 billion during the year. The UK business also saw growth of 5 percent in 2010. According to published reports, another TV-shopping company, Yorkshire-based High Street TV, achieved turnover of £15 million after just two years in business.

Attracting new entrants
Shoe retailer Pavers is no stranger to selling its wares through third-party TV channels; it has had a spot on Ideal World for some time now. In early 2011, managing director Stuart Paver decided it was time to launch Pavers’ own offering. A meeting with DRTV agency The Broadcast House at the CatEx Round Table day in April 2010, galvanised his vision for the channel and the agency—spearheaded by former JML commercial director Pete Mills—was employed to develop the project. It worked to secure bandwidth, source studios and presenters, create a look for the channel and develop “as-live” programming.

The channel, called PaversShoes.tv, launches on 6th April on Sky channel 659. Stephanie Curry, head of home shopping and retail marketing for Pavers, says the company will launch with 22 hours’ worth of prerecorded programming. To break up the schedule, Pavers will also air commercials for the brands it stocks, and include information on Pavers’ stores and website. No decision has yet been taken on whether PaversShoes.tv will feature other forms of third-party advertising.

According to Curry, having a TV channel opens the company to a new audience. It also allows the business the opportunity to describe its products in much more detail than it can online or in a catalogue—giving customers additional expert advice and helping them make more informed buying decisions. In addition, it is expected to be a very strong sales driver, with Pavers estimating the TV channel to add £10 million to turnover within 12 months. 

Argos is another business hoping to benefit from a TV audience. The multichannel retailer plans to launch a channel on Sky this summer as part of its commitment to offer “customers a whole range of convenient ways to shop with Argos,” said managing director Sara Weller in a statement. Echoing the sentiments of Pavers, the new TV channel for Argos will enable customers to explore the benefits of products in more depth than traditional print or online channels allow.

Next-generation TV-shopping
While Argos and Pavers are examples of a more traditional approach to TV-selling, IPTV is also gathering momentum. Net-a-Porter and Debenhams are two recent examples of retailers that have launched digital TV channels.  Debenhams, which started broadcasting its web TV channel in late 2010, says the channel provides “a fresh alternative to the traditional ‘browse and buy’ online shopping experience”. Net-a-Porter set up its TV channel in February, and claims to be the first fashion-commerce site to be available on Google-TV enabled TVs, Blu-Ray players and set-top boxes in the USA. A global launch across all of these platforms is in the pipeline.

To differentiate their brands from the competition, it is becoming increasingly important that retailers create engaging content that can be consumed by customers whether they are at a computer, browsing a catalogue, watching TV, or using their mobiles on-the-go. By adding another dimension to catalogue and online selling, DRTV, and its web cousin IPTV, are ones to watch in 2011.