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Dive Brief:
QVC Group hosted its first Super Brand Day on TikTop Shop earlier this month, building on its efforts to expand its reach and investments in social shopping. For eight hours on May 14, QVC Group streamed live content from creators and celebrities on TikTok resulting in its highest viewed and engaged company-hosted livestream to date, a QVC Group spokesperson said.
QVC Group plans to expand its TikTok reach internationally, CEO David Rawlinson said during a recent earnings call. Next February, the company will partner with TikTok U.K.
Minutes watched on QVC Group’s social and streaming platforms grew 26% compared to last year, while streaming monthly active users grew 131%. March was the company’s largest non-holiday revenue month.
Dive Insight:
QVC Group said success in its streaming and social businesses is crucial. The company now streams 24/7 on TikTok and cited its most important metric as revenue growth in a recent earnings call. QVC Group estimates the percentage of revenue generated during Q1 through streaming and social platforms was in the mid- to high-single digits.
Rawlinson said what’s key to the company’s social strategy is that it consists of a pre-aggregated audience.
“There are already tens of millions, in some cases, hundreds of millions of people, if not billions, on those platforms,” Rawlinson said on the call. “And so you get to play in a very growing, large stream of potential customers who are increasingly used to seeing shopping content in their social feeds and who are increasingly converting over to purchases within their social experience. And so that’s the magnitude of the opportunity.”
Despite QVC Group’s financial struggles, the company is going all in on social shopping investments.
Among its various social commerce investments, QVC Group’s latest targets Gen X. The “Age of Possibility” platform celebrates women over age 50 with an expanded TikTok partnership and an eight-hour livestream shopping event.
Beyond social, QVC Group is tapping into other ways it can broaden customer reach. Through a partnership with American Airlines, travelers can stream QVC+ and HSN+ channels on the airline’s free in-flight entertainment platform.
