What Goes Around Comes Around: Charla Rines Back On ShopHQ

 Here the latest chapter in the musical-chair world of home shopping.

Charla Rines, who was a host on ShopHQ (or whatver it was called back then) for 16 years from 1994 to 2010 as a host, has rejoined the home shopping network.

We saw her pop up Sunday to surprise jewelry designer Sonia Biton on-air, and she is supposed to be on today working.

We always liked Charla. She was very edgy, in her looks and presentations, not the typical home shopping host.

One of our readers kindly told us that Charla had worked for other vendors after she left ShopHQ, and even managed a Cheesecake Factory eatery.

Has Jewelry Designer Dallas Prince Exited ShopHQ After 19 Years, And Gone To QVC?

We missed this during the busy holiday season: jewelry designer Dallas Prince has kicked off the new year with a collection on QVC. We’re not quite sure if that means she has totally exited ShopHQ.

Prince, who we seem to recall was on HSN for many years, in November last year on FB posted that she was about to celebrate her 19th anniversary on ShopHQ.

But we just noticed that a large number of her pieces are being sold on QVC.com, many of them featuring marcasite.

https://www.qvc.com/catalog/search.html?keyword=dallas+prince

But her collection is still being sold on ShopHQ.com.

https://www.shophq.com/search/?q=dallas%20prince%20jewelry

And about a week ago Prince said this year she will be selling her jewelry on TVSN in Australia and New Zealand.

Can you guys tell us what we missed?

QVC ‘Jewelry Love’ Day Was Pretty, Pretty Good

We admit it: We did some damage to our credit card on Friday during QVC’s jewelry love day. It didn’t help that we were off, taking a comp day after covering the National Retail Federation conference last weekend in Manhattan, and could watch much of the day.

We thought QVC did a good job of presenting baubles across categories — gold, silver, gemstones, diamonds, high price and low price.

Veteran QVC gold buyer David Markstein debuted his new line for the home shopping network, and we thought it was inventive and appealing. We ordered two of his items, one a 14K gold bracelet and a silver cross that is on waitlist.

Gold has gotten so expensive that frankly we really can’t afford it anymore. But we’ve been looking for two items in solid gold anyway: a link-type bracelet to layer and a small cross. We’re hoping that the bracelet we ordered from Markstein is substantial enough for us for the price.

We also ordered a small cross from Eterna Gold that was dimensional and had diamond-cutting, another item we plan to layer. We’ll see how that goes.

Finally, we ordered a half-a-carat Infinity diamond ring in silver, with round stones and baquettes (our favorite cut). BTW we really enjoy Michele Lau. We weren’t looking for a diamond ring, but this one looked really good for the price — a big look for the money. We hope we like it.

Jeff Moseley debuted his new jewelry line, Pure Tarzanite. They were gorgeous pieces, but well out of our price range. But we love seeing his passion for the stone, and wish him well with this venture.

So, it’s time to lock up our credit. And there goes that New Year’s resolution about taming our spending.

BTW, someone who reads this blog stopped by the NRF press room to say hello. He knew we were at the conference because of some posts we did on LinkedIn. He said he works for some vendors for both QVC and HSN.

We actually got in trouble for talking too loudly and had to cut our chat short!

New York Times Puff Profiles QVC ‘Storyteller’ Shawn Killinger

Oh boy.

We know that QVC host Shawn Killinger has a lot of detractors, but we feel rather neutral about her. That’s probably because we don’t watch her that often — we avoid QVC segments on clothing and beauty products like the plague. And she often does them.

Jewelry is our addiction.

But that said, it was quite a puff piece that The Sunday New York Times did yesterday on Killinger.

Here is the link, but we can’t give you access because we don’thave a digitial sub to the Times.

The headline is here for you to see.

Her analysis of her appeal on QVC doesn’t mesh with that we know, but what do we know?

“The big secret is that I don’t sell. I’m not a salesperson. I’m a storyteller.”

That’s what Killinger told the Times. Again, we don’t feel strongly about her either way. But all home shopping hosts are sales people. Duh.

The author loves her, BTW.

“She doesn’t go for the hard pitch … Her style is mac-and-cheese comforting,” he wrote.

There are a number of gems in the story from Killinger.

“When you’re watching, I want you to love that story about my husband manscaping because I want you to be my friend.”

Does “manscaping” mean what we think it does?

How about this?

“I think I just tinkled when I laughed.”

QVC Cancels Orders For Dooney Bags That Were Online for Bargain-Basement Prices

Here’s one way to alienate your customer base: put a purse for sale online, apparently mistakenly at a wowzer low price, and then cancel the orders when you realize someone made a boo-boo.

It looks like that’s what happened at QVC right before Christmas.

On an unaffiliated QVC Facebook group someone posted that some Dooney & Burke purses were on clearance sale for like $19, down from original prices of several hundred. Now that’s a deal!

Of course, we immediately went to QVC.com to see if we could snatch one of these handbags. No such luck.

But we did see that a $100 duffle bag by Vera Bradley was going for $20, but didn’t really want or need one.

Later QVC shoppers posted that the home shopping network had cancelled their orders for the dirt-cheap Dooney purses. People were angry and they should be.

Someone on the Facebook group defended QVC, saying that somewhere there was fine print saying that the network wasn’t responsible for mistakes in posted prices, or words to that effect. That’s some BS.

By cancelling those orders, QVC was taking an action that created a lot of bad feelings and a loss of what in the financial world is calld “good will.”

How much of a financial hit could QVC had taken on those purses? Come on. Seriously! You burn your customers instead of letting it go?

Once again, we’re left scratching our head.