By Jennifer Leonard

While retailers struggle to draw in customers and television networks have difficulty monetizing their viewership due to slashed advertising budgets, QVC and HSN are seeing impressive gains during the coronavirus pandemic, writes Jinjoo Lee in the Wall Street Journal.

That’s because home shopping networks are fortunate to occupy a sweet spot between the two industries, combining the power of television with direct, retail purchases. Their increased viewership more easily translates to more profits.

In fact, Qurate Retail, the parent company of QVC and HSN, reported a 10% increase in viewership from late March to the end of April. And across its social platforms, viewership has surged 100%.

And while revenue dropped 4% in the first quarter, by late March, Qurate reported “positive sales and new customer growth.” Per CEO Mike George, sales improved as QVC and HSN focused more on what quarantined customers wanted—less fashion, more home goods.

By contrast, Discovery Inc., which owns Food Network, HGTV and TLC, enjoyed huge ratings in April but expects its advertising revenue to be down 20%. And international advertising revenue was down 10% in March and is predicted to fall 40% in April.

As life slowly returns to normal, all industries will once again struggle for consumers’ attention. But QVC might still have an edge: Its customers tend to stick around. Last year, about 86% of QVC’s sales came from repeat shoppers.

Find out more about the success of home shopping networks during the pandemic in the Wall Street Journal.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jennifer Leonard is a writer at VISTA Today, specializing in retail and consumer marketing. A West Goshen resident, Jennifer has 20 years of experience as a full-time editor and writer for magazines including Woman’s World, Cosmopolitan and Seventeen. Jennifer is available at jleonard@vista.today.

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