QVC parent company Qurate Retail Group to rebrand, expand into social commerce
Qurate Retail Group will change its name as part of a new growth strategy to focus more on social media and livestreaming to engage customers.
The company, part of Qurate Retail Inc. and whose portfolio includes QVC, HSN, Ballard Designs and more, is launching a new strategy to build on its legacy in TV shopping and will expand into a live social shopping company. As part of the initiative, Qurate Retail Group will become the "QVC Group" in the first quarter of 2025. (The company will continue to operate as Qurate Retail Group until then.)
“QVC is a globally well known, highly regarded brand with goodwill and trust built over decades," said David Rawlinson II, president and CEO, Qurate Retail Inc. "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."
Qurate has set a goal to achieve $1.5 billion-plus run-rate revenue from streaming and social within three years.
"Live social shopping is a natural evolution for us, said Rawlinson. “ 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."
QVC Group will organize around three priorities the company is summing up with an acronym called "WIN" – "Wherever she shops," "Inspiring people and products," and "New ways of working":
Wherever she shops
On social media, QVC Group will extend its sales, content and celebrity influencers to social-first formats with the most popular platforms among its core audience. The company will develop a platform-tailored approach for social, leveraging touchpoints including creator affiliate storefronts, livestreams, organic media, and paid media.
On streaming, QVC Group will continue to amplify its own QVC+ and HSN+ streaming platform and develop streaming commerce propositions for non-owned audiences on channels like YouTube TV, Sling, Roku, Hulu, and Netflix.
Inspiring people and products
QVC Group will enhance its production studios, building new capabilities to create purpose-built content for its 24/7 live shopping environment, extending across social, streaming, linear TV and digital distribution points.
The company intends to create an optimized workflow from concept development to filming, editing and multi-platform distribution. QVC Group will tailor content to different formats (vertical for mobile, horizontal for smart TVs) and platforms (such as TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube).
New ways of working
Through its Project Athens initiative (see more details below), Qurate Retail Group says it has adopted new ways of working and embraced a culture of continuous improvement. As QVC Group, the company says it will maintain this discipline and continue to find efficiencies to fund its growth, including transforming its Cornerstone Brands apparel banner.
‘Project Athens’ coming to a close
Qurate Retail Group is preparing for this new branding and direction as it nears the end of its multiyear Project Athens initiative, which it launched in in June 2022 to optimize its brand portfolio. Project Athens efforts have included rolling out a web version of its interactive streaming shopping service for its QVC and HSN banners, as well as introducing a new creator platform called HSNfluencer and backing a videocentric shopping app called Sune with an interface resembling TikTok.
[READ MORE: New shopping app Sune backed by QVC parent offers TikTok-like experience]
"Through our new Growth Strategy, we will purposefully intensify our already successful efforts in social and streaming to reach fast-growing audiences," 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."
QVC Group's portfolio of brands will remain the same: QVC, HSN, Garnet Hill, Grandin Road, Ballard Designs, and Frontgate. The company liquidated its daily deals-focused Zulily digital apparel business at the end of 2023, but its intellectual property and brand assets were purchased by Overtock and Bed Bath & Beyond parent Beyond in March 2024.
