Dive Brief:
- Qurate Retail Group, owner of HSN and QVC, is building on its TV sales legacy and expanding into a live social shopping company, according to a Friday press release.
- To start the transition, the company is renaming itself the “QVC Group” by Q1 2025 and aiming to reach $1.5 billion or more in revenue from streaming and social within the next three years.
- As part of its new strategy, the company will continue to amplify its QVC+ and HSN+ streaming platforms and develop streaming commerce options for channels including Netflix, Hulu and YouTube TV; bring celebrities and sales content to its social media channels; refresh its production studios; and tailor its content to TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms, according to the announcement.
Dive Insight:
Qurate Retail Group’s new three-pronged approach will entail spreading its content to new areas where shoppers are spending their time, creating “the world’s leading” live social shopping content engine and improving its technology to attract new audiences.
The company hopes its new name will help establish itself as “the leader in shoppable entertainment,” per its press release.
“We are expanding our core for the next era of growth,” David Rawlinson, president and CEO of Qurate Retail, said in a statement. “Live social shopping is a natural evolution for us. We have always been live on television, and our programming has always had this deep human and social component. Our customers are spending dramatically more time on social media, and that is increasingly where they are finding inspiration and shopping.”
The company also announced that it was nearing the end of “Project Athens,” a growth plan originally launched in 2022, designed to stabilize and differentiate the company’s core business, while expanding its position in video streaming commerce.
While the company takes steps to lead in live social shopping, Qurate Retail Group has struggled with falling sales. In June, the company said it was facing a delisting from Nasdaq and has until Dec. 9 to regain compliance. In its Q3 earnings released earlier this month, the company reported a 5% dip in revenue year over year and a year ago the company landed on Retail Dive’s bankruptcy watch list.
In addition to its strategic pivot, Qurate Retail Group has recently made leadership changes at its parent company and subsidiary brands. Qurate expanded Bill Wafford’s role to CFO and chief administrative officer, placing him in charge of the company’s transformation office, as well as its global people division.
Over the summer, Mara Sirhal, formerly chief merchant for Saks Off 5th, was named chief merchandising officer for QVC U.S., tasking her with overseeing the brand’s merchandising strategy across fashion, home, jewelry, beauty and electronics. Similarly in September, Rosalia Bucaro, formerly of Rue Gilt Groupe, became HSN’s new chief merchandising officer, where she will refresh the company’s product assortment and manage celebrity partnerships.
Qurate Retail Group once was known as Liberty Interactive Corporation until 2018, when it split off from telecommunications company GCI Liberty and went through a rebranding effort.
