Electronic Retailer - June 2011 - 31

Although Thane has embraced other new media like social networking with some success, Tukulj says, “We’re firmly rooted in our belief that without television, we would not have a business such as the one that we have.”

EXPERTS IN 3RD PARTY LOGISTICS

“Those include products that came from U.S. marketers who already had success with them in that market or from people who have not had any success and they came to us to create the whole marketing message and run their products in and outside of the United States,” he says. “Honestly, the benefit to product owners is that we provide a turnkey solution for worldwide distribution, regardless if you’ve got a finished show or not.” In addition, Thane has a thriving home shopping business. The company owns and operates seven full-time home shopping channels. “These home shopping channels are primarily in the Middle East, where almost 90 percent of our media is through free-to-air 24-hour infomercial channels and have proven very successful,” he explains. In 2002, Thane acquired a home shopping channel in the United Kingdom, which exclusively runs direct response programming 24 hours a day. Across the pond, Thane has long-established relationships with QVC and HSN and other live shopping channels. Although Thane has embraced other new media like social networking with some success, Tukulj says, “We’re firmly rooted in our belief that without television, we would not have a business such as the one that we have. It’s very rare that somebody would seek you out on the internet unless they’ve seen your show on television.”

A Revelation About Retail
Although retail is a very relatively small part of the company’s overall

marketing mix, Tukulj believes there’s a fantastic opportunity for growth. Despite being in more than 100 countries, Tukulj says his company sees its best opportunity for growth in non-television channels of distribution in its own vertically integrated markets. “Simply stated, it’s about retail wherever we have media,” he says. “We’ve been primarily a direct response company whose top line is driven by direct response sales, and we’ve been less focused on developing retail and non-television channels of distribution.” Thane products adorn the shelves of more than 53 major brick-and-mortar retailers, including Target, Bed Bath & Beyond, Walgreens, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Big 5 Sporting Goods, Olympia Sporting Goods, Academy Sporting Goods, Bon Ton, Fry’s, Shopko, Ross, Auchan, Cora, Leclerc France, El Corte Spain, Walmart Mexico, Sunborns Mex and many others. Tukulj notes that a key trend occurring in this industry is the business model changing over to a retail-support model. “I think that retail is going to become very important and international markets will begin to resemble what the U.S. market is today, which means that almost all successful DRTV products primarily run on television in order to support retail,” contends Tukulj. “That’s what we see as the major evolutionary step in the international business over the next couple of years, and we want to expand our own retail efforts. That’s our main focus for the next five years.”

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June 2011 | electronicRETAILER

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Electronic Retailer - June 2011

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