ShopHQ has rescheduled its fourth-quarter earnings release, originally slated for this week, until April 15.
“Due to COVID-19 complexities, including the recent shelter in place orders affecting iMedia employees in both Minnesota and Kentucky, iMedia Brands is using additional time to complete its year end audit procedures,” ShopHQ, whose corporate name is iMedia, said in a press release.
We’ve been writing a lot about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on businesses for our day job, and what companies in New York and New Jersey are considered “essential” and can remain open.
So it was interesting to read this New York Times story, headlined “QVC: Quarantine, Value, Convenience,” about how the home shopping network is up and running and broadcasting as an essential business.
Of course, all the U.S. home shopping continue to televise. But we have to wonder a bit who they are essential to?
We’re addicted, and we know others are, but essential?
“It was not possible, on Monday, to send a child to school in Pennsylvania or for the Department of Transportation to perform any but the most urgent bridge repairs,” The Times reported, “But bookkeepers, slaughterhouses, steel mills and QVC stayed open.”
We thought the story was pretty insightful about some of the allure of home shopping.
“In some respects, no network is better suited to see viewers through the unraveling global catastrophe,” The Times said of QVC. “Even under normal conditions, the shopping channel’s hypnotic, sales pitch-style programming soothes like a balm.”
According to The Times, “The company’s founder Joseph Segel, once summarized its appeal with the observation, ‘There’s no bad news on QVC.’”
The story poked fun at QVC and the challenge of hawking goods while a disease is ravaging the world and people are penned inside their homes.
“Parents wishing to sharpen children’s extemporaneous speaking skills during their prolonged absence from class would do well to present them with the challenge faced by host Kerstin Lindquist at the one o’clock hour on Monday: endeavoring, for 60 minutes, to sell sunglasses to a population heavily discouraged — in some localities, legally prohibited — from amusing itself outdoors,” The Times wrote.
FYI, so you can get your QVC packages, the channel’s fulfillment centers in Pennsylvania, Virginia, California, and North and South Carolina have not reduced staffing, according to The Times.
It reported that QVC said it has made health and safety modifications at all sites and that those who can do their jobs remotely are doing so.
There were several posts on our blog saying that Laura Duffek had announced on Facebook that she was gone as a host at ShopHQ.
We checked her Facebook page, and didn’t see any such post. And Duffek is still listed as a host on the home shopping channel’s webpage.
Here is her bio:
Laura Duffek returns to ShopHQ having built a well-deserved reputation for being an informative and entertaining host whose ability to romance products makes customers fall in love too.
Her passion for customers is immediately evident, and her ability to make everyone feel welcome is just one of the many reasons she has fans who have stayed in touch with her for the last 25 years.
Can anyone add any clarity on this?
It’s no longer business as usual in America, or on U.S. home shopping networks.
We knew major changes were afoot a few days ago when veteran ShopHQ jewelry vendor Chuck Clemency made his appearance remotely, from his home in our home state, New Jersey.
Then we got this email from ShopHQ:
To Our Valued Customers,
As this global health concern continues to unfold, the ShopHQ family wants you to know that our number one priority is to continue to take every necessary step we can to ensure the health and safety of our customers, employees and guests.
We are diligently following the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), so that our ShopHQ family can continue to support you with the highest quality service without disruption. Our customer solution agents, many of whom work from home, remain available to take your calls 24/7. We continue to be on-air and online 24/7 with engaging entertainment and shopping. And, you can always find us available on our social channels.
I want to personally thank you for being a part of our community. And as with all personal and professional challenges in life, big and small, we will work smart, we will work tirelessly, and we will get through this. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tim Peterman
CEO
Then QVC product rep Linda Davis posted on Facebook that as of today, Monday, on-air guest hosts would no longer be allowed on the No. 1 home shopping channel.
“My heart is heavy but I support their decision for safety,” Davis wrote. “There are many of us and hard to control the amount of people coming in. Safety for all first.”
Davis, who has been on QVC 18 years, said she appeared on the network most recently last Wednesday.
“I am sitting this quarantine out alone,” she wrote.
Meanwhile on JTV, hosts are sitting 6 feet away from each other, practicing social distancing.
It will be interesting to see if the home shopping networks see a burst in sales with malls and brick-and-mortar retailer closed, or if consumers will take advantage of e-commerce and just shop online.
We liked and were buying Jambu shoes and boots long before they arrived on ShopHQ. We like their chunky look.
So we are happy to see that not only Jambu but former ShopHQ host Kimberly Wells are jumping from that home shopping network and coming to HSN, starting April 9.
Looks like Wells, who left ShopHQ a way back, will be the on-air rep for the footwear line.
Hope there are some good deals.
Homeshoppingista's Blog By Linda Moss 