In a move to double down on the equity of its flagship brand QVC, Qurate Retail Group — also the parent company of HSN, Garnet Hill, Grandin Road, Ballard Designs and Frontgate — is rebranding as QVC Group as it looks to expand its presence in the realm of live social shopping.
As it nears the end of its multi-year Project Athens turnaround strategy, the company is now setting its sights on becoming “the world’s leading live social shopping content engine, inspiring human connection with incredible finds.”
“QVC is a globally well known, highly regarded brand with goodwill and trust built over decades,” said David Rawlinson II, President and CEO of Qurate Retail, Inc. in a statement. “It immediately conveys what makes this company so special; and it gives us a terrific foundation to build around as we target growth in the future.”
The company will continue to operate as Qurate Retail Group until Q1 2025, when it will officially become QVC Group. Alongside the name shift, the company has set a goal to bring in at least $1.5 billion in run-rate revenue from streaming and social within three years, while maintaining a stable, double-digit adjusted OIBDA (operating income before depreciation and amortization) margin.
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The Project Athens transformation effort, which kicked off in June 2022, has led to material improvements in the business that focus on driving profitability and instilling operational rigor. The effort is expected to deliver more than $500 million in adjusted OIBDA run-rate impact through the end of 2024.
QVC Hopes to Turn TV Shopping Expertise into Social Shopping Success
Now, for its next act, the soon-to-be-named QVC Group is looking to win in the live social shopping space by:
- Extending the group’s sales, content and celebrity expertise to social-first formats with the most popular platforms among its core audience, as well as developing a platform-tailored approach for social that leverages creator affiliate storefronts, livestreams, organic media, paid media and more. “We saw significant follower growth from QVC’s Age of Possibility campaign and our launch on TikTok Shop,” Rawlinson said. “We know we have large opportunities on social”;
- Continuing to amplify the QVC+ and HSN+ streaming TV platforms and develop streaming commerce propositions for non-owned audiences on channels such as YouTube TV, Sling, Roku, Hulu and Netflix;
- Building new capabilities to efficiently create purpose-built content for its 24/7 live shopping environment, which will extend across social, streaming, linear TV and digital distribution points. The company will develop an optimized workflow from concept development to filming, editing and multi-platform distribution, as well as tailoring content to different formats (e.g. vertical for mobile, horizontal for smart TVs) and platforms including TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and others; and
- Continuing the adoption ofa culture of transparency, rigor, pace and continuous improvement that was instituted through Project Athens.
“Strengthened by Athens, and inspired by shopper behaviors, we are expanding our core for the next era of growth,” said Rawlinson. “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.”
