Move over, cubic zirconia. Make way for Saks Fifth Avenue. The medium that once played to Joe Six-pack has begun to court the brand-conscious. Even fashion designers and electronics manufacturers are taking their wares to the tube, in the form of program-length " infomercials" or shows on home-shopping networks. Three weeks ago, Saks announced that it will design an hour-long program for QVC, the network headed by former Fox TV chairman Barry Diller. And both Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom are hoping to follow suit. While some analysts fear that the trend could sully mainstream companies’ images, most see home shopping for highbrows as the wave of the future. “Every titan on Seventh Avenue wants to get on what they think is the road to riches,” says retail consultant Alan Millstein. “Once big names like Calvin Klein join in, everyone else will fall in line.”
The array of products on the block is enough to light up the switchboard at Shoppers Anonymous. By merely dialing an 800 number, consumers in TV-land can buy everything from the 20-piece line of Von Furstenberg silks (retail price $35 to $120) to jewelry from comedienne Joan Rivers ($20 to $120 per piece). Callers to the Saks Fifth Avenue shopping show will be offered the store’s exclusive brand of women’s sportswear called Real Clothes ($50 to $150). And Avon Products enthusiasts can buy a $49.50 package of creams, cleansers and moisturizers. Soon, the shopping bourgeoisie will even be able to purchase fashions designed by that queen of conspicuous consumption herself, Ivana Trump. She’ll join Wheel of Fortune vowel maven Vanna White on the set of the Home Shopping Network to pitch what promotional materials call “animal prints and yummy pastels” ($150 to $220 for a suit).
Who’s buying this stuff? According to a study by the New York accounting firm Deloitte & Touche, the single largest group of buyers is professional people and managers. Many of them have little time to shop, and they are disenchanted with the crowds and checkout lines at conventional department stores. Some experts speculate the networks are going after frequent catalog shoppers, expecting them to be heavy tube browsers. They will target the “Lands’ End crowd,” consultant Millstein says-folks who like to shop from their living rooms. To fight back, some catalogers hint that they may take to the small screen themselves. Says Debbie Koopman, a spokeswoman for Spiegel Inc.: “We’re in the retail business to provide consumers with a convenient way to shop. If that’s the new avenue, then we’ll use it.”
So far, the biggest beneficiaries of television shopping have been the industry’s Is two dominant players–Home Shopping Network and QVC. Each takes a distinctive approach to the business. While HSN is the quintessential sidewalk hawker (“Great Bargains! Guaranteed!”) QVC is the hawker gone to finishing school. “HSN’s hard-sell approach enabled it to spurt ahead faster,” says Peter J. Siris, a retail analyst for UBS Securities in New York, “but QVC’s soft sell has allowed it to build a stronger base of repeat sales.” QVC, which reaches more than 47 million American homes, saw annual sales per household rise from $13.28 in 1987 to $23.37 in 1991. And, industrywide, TV-shopping sales have grown sixfold, to $2.2 billion, over the past six years, figures Siris. That’s about as much as Tiffany, Ann Taylor, Filene’s Basement and Lands’ End combined.
The networks’ arrangements with suppliers vary. Often, the home-shopping channels buy the merchandise directly from a vendor, just the way a department store would. In the case of infomercials, networks are paid a fee for airing the program. To avoid cannibalizing their flagship businesses, some marketers may offer different merchandise on TV than in their retail stores. The beauty of the system, as Ivana Trump has quickly learned, is volume sales. “In the department store, you sell a couple of dresses,” she says. “When you go on television, you sell hundreds of dresses in a couple of hours.”
The TV-shopping venue sometimes serves as an appetizer to lure customers to feast at the retail level. Volvo Cars of North America Inc. has aired two half-hour infomercials introducing the car’s safety designs. The goal: to get customers to call an 800 number and wind up in a showroom. Similarly, Kodak will use an infomercial to showcase Photo CD, a new technology that allows consumers to store pictures on compact discs. And Sharp Electronics launched its new full-size VHS twin-lens camcorder on cable TV before peddling it through retail stores. Says Alan Gerson, executive vice president of the Home Shopping Network: “We used to sell products at the end of their life cycle rather than at the beginning. Now we’re being discovered as a terrific way to introduce a product.”
Can TV marketers shake their image as Veg-O-Matic vendors? Some experts think not. They recall, for example, how the value of the Halston label plummeted in the early 1980s after the designer tried to sell his fashions through JCPenney. “Some consumers like to think that a brand is so special it wouldn’t stoop to such a level,” says Edwin D. Rice, a consultant for Landor Associates, a brand-identity firm based in San Francisco. Bloomingdale’s, for one, is struggling for ways to ensure that its pristine reputation isn’t undermined. CEO Michael Gould says that while the company plans to soon launch a home-shopping show, it is still deciding how it can best capitalize on television. “The medium, as constructed, isn’t conducive to Bloomingdale’s’” he admits. “There are things that have to change for a quality store to go on without hurting the franchise.”
But that kind of talk doesn’t seem to worry profit-conscious marketers. Volvo’s initial foray into infomercials was responsible for the sale of 100 cars, a company spokesman says. And Von Furstenberg’s first show sold out in two hours, bringing in $1.2 million. Eventually, some experts believe, the home-shopping networks will operate multiple channels that emulate shopping malls. “They’ll have something for everyone,” says marketing consultant Wendy Liebmann of WSL Marketing in New York. “A beauty segment for women, a style segment for teenagers-all primed for the disenchanted retail shopper.” That would suit Suzanne Sykes just fine. The newly converted TV shopper has organized a “shopping party” for some of her women friends next month. But instead of heading for the department stores, she says, they’ll just click on the remote control.
