Electronic Retailer - June 2011 - 35

normal distribution curve with your main customer in the middle, and, of course, we have to carry on serving them because they pay the rent. But there are some very interesting wings to that distribution curve of customer, and I think that’s where a lot of the opportunities lie. Have there been any surprises or mistakes that led you somewhere good? There are two big experiments. We always knew they’d be interesting but didn’t bank on their success. First is our partnership with (UK public service TV network) ITV. For years and years, you could get “dark” time for teleshopping or odd hours of airtime from commercial TV channels on cable and satellite, but you couldn’t go near public service commercial broadcasters – it was absolutely forbidden. Last year, the law changed and Ofcom allowed a certain amount of this to happen, and from May onwards we began an experiment with ITV. We’re still learning at this, but it does bring a bigger audience and it does bring a new sort of customer. If you go out and buy a shopping window on a comedy channel or something like that, you’ll have a very niche audience, so your success will depend on whether your product hits their wishes. ITV, Channel4 and Channel5 are much broader because they’re general entertainment channels, so the demographic of who’s watching is much, much broader. It doesn’t come cheap, and it’s a compliance adventure to say the least. More eyeballs mean more scrutiny, and it’s their public service license. It has been a voyage of discovery. We are working to refine it. It’s expensive, but it brings things you don’t expect, and it brings in new customers. What you’d expect a product to perform like on the main channel is completely different to how it performs with that audience. With that you can then look at buying different products, but I don’t think we know enough yet. Second is probably QVC Beauty, running a channel with two staffers.

That’s all QVC Beauty takes, the rest is automation. We’ve tried that model here, and it has worked. We’ve tried it in Germany, and it has worked. So I think that’s our biggest recent achievement. What’s in the pipeline now? We need to sort out moving to the new premises in the next year and going

HD. There are opportunities to be had with smartphones, and quite frankly there are opportunities to be had with different product lines. QVC is a lot more active internationally, and if you look at Mike George’s statements to Liberty, you’ll know that we’re looking at expanding in several markets at the moment – so that’s taking up quite a bit of time.

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June 2011 | electronicRETAILER

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Electronic Retailer - June 2011

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