QVC Background
QVC (Quality, Value, and Convenience) was founded by Joseph Segal in 1986 and they also started broadcasting in the same year in November. The Home Shopping Network a televised shopping network was launched two years before that time. Joseph always felt himself impressed with the idea that another new televised shopping network would have the potential to attract new customers from around the globe resulting into significant profits.
Over the next few months Segal launched his own shopping network headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States. He hired several seasoned television executives and offered 24 hours and 7 days in a week television shopping to their consumers at their doorsteps. In the first year of their launch QVC extended its reach to 13 million homes through cable and satellite system, 700,000 viewers converted into customers resulting into 3 million orders shipping resulting into small profit for the firm.
In fall 1988 Segal was able to acquire his competitor Cable Value Shopping channel and he also acquired Dominique Corporation, its trademark rights and started to sell their products over QVC that included gemstones and jewelry.
In 1993 QVC became the leading televised shopping channel both in sales and profit reaching more than 80 percent of all home cables and 3 million satellite dishes. In the same year Segal retired and passed control to Barry Diller. Since then QVC proved itself as a leading channel by gaining its customers trust from around the world.
QVC Top Retailer on mobile platform
In 13 February 2013 an organization called Foresee released the Mobile Satisfaction index after customer satisfaction survey. The QVC not only recognized itself for television and home shopping but also ranked as one of the top three retailers on the mobile platform which was a huge success. One of the Foresee Director Eric Feinberg says that “Mobile phones have become the integral part of Customers shopping”.
QVC Success Factor
QVC proved itself as the most popular television shopping channel. They continuously look for unique products all over the U.S. in different cities then scan and present the best products for their consumers. They have more than 100 experienced buyers which search for new products to present over QVC Channel.
QVC not only offers unique products but they also offer affordable price for their customers to adjust shipping and other charges.
QVC is also looking for new ways to attract new customers through Tacori jewelry brand whose jewelry is worn by TV stars, clothing from Marc Bouwer who has made clothes for Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry and exclusive products from Kim Kardashian and Rachel Zoe. This strategy brought thousands of new customers for QVC.
QVC is asking itself as the leading multimedia retailers by successfully running their website over internet. They have attracted more than 9.5 million visitors on their website by early 2012. This website was developed in 1995 to develop another form of access for their online customers. Over the last few years they also started to offer interactive-television, mobile phones and mobile apps on their website.
QVC Marketing Strategy
QVC is well familiar with importance of marketing strategy and its impact on business. This is the reason that QVC often calls different celebrities to their channel such as clothing designers, authors etc. to sell their own products.
All the celebrities are given special training to pitch their products offerings and talk with the customers in a friendly manner. The customers are also given the chance to call in and have on air conversations with program hosts and celebrities.
All the QVC themed programs are telecast live 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week to millions of household’s worldwide. All these strategies and tactics helped QVC to increase its annual sales every year.
Since its start-up customer has managed to make a large customer base that resulted in increased sales and customers.
The firm is also embedding the interactive services features on their channel that would allow their customers to select and buy any product from their channel on single remote click. They are using this facility to increase their sales.
Customer Satisfaction
In QVC all the sales are managed minutely by many workers who continuously nine television and computer screens to track sales of each item. Doug Rose who manages programming and marketing says that “We track orders per minute.”
If we talk about shipment then 90% of all the shipment is done within 48 hours. There huge distribution area is so big that 100 football fields can adjust in this. The quality assurance is also done before any shipment and all the people at QVC work hard to ensure that all the shipment items are shipped and packages properly. Paul Day the logistics manager says that “Nothing can be shipped unless its quality is inspected”.
More than three quarter of the shopping channel customers have rated this QVC channel as 7 out of 7 for trustworthiness. That also resulted in recommendation that these customers recommended this channel to their friends as well.
QVC Success Strategy for Future
In today’s world mobile shopping has become popular and people prefer to have all the things done through their smart devices. So to capture all those people QVC is planning to create mobile shopping applications for smartphones and tablets. This segment is in development phase right now but after successful completion they will able to increase more sales.
References
Dess, Lumpkin, Eisner, McNamara,Strategic Management: Text and Cases, 7th Edition. New York : McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza.
