Qurate Retail Group, part of Qurate Retail, Inc., will undertake a new strategy under a new name: QVC Group. The company looks to build on its television shopping legacy and expand its scope as a multi-platform, live social shopping network.
The financial goal set for the initiative is to achieve $1.5 billion plus run-rate revenue from streaming and social within three years while maintaining a stable, double-digit adjusted OIBDA margin.
Qurate Retail Group is nearing the end of its multi-year Project Athens initiative, which the company said has materially improved its business by driving profitability growth despite a challenging media and retail landscape. Project Athens helped the company instill operational rigor while leaning into what makes Qurate Retail distinct: engaged and loyal customers, compelling live shopping content, fine-tuned brand and merchandising expertise, and strong supply chain capabilities, the company indicated. Overall, Qurate Retail expects Project Athens to deliver more than $500 million in adjusted OIBDA run-rate impact through the end of 2024.
As it shifts to the new strategy, QVC Group reported it will concentrate on three priorities:
- Wherever She Shops. As it advances its consumer engagement strategy, QVC Group will extend sales, content and celebrity expertise to social-first formats with the most popular platforms among its core audience. The company will advance a platform-tailored approach for social, leveraging creator affiliate storefronts, live streams, organic media and paid media. QVC Group will continue amplifying its QVC+ and HSN+ streaming platforms and develop streaming commerce propositions for non-owned audiences on channels such as YouTube TV, Sling, Roku, Hulu, Netflix and others.
- Inspiring People and Products. QVC Group will enhance its production studios, building new capabilities to efficiently create purpose-built content for its 24/7 live shopping environment, extending across social, streaming, linear TV and digital distribution points. The company will establish an optimized workflow from concept development to filming, editing and multi-platform distribution, and it will tailor content to different formats while maintaining QVC’s and HSN’s brand voices.
- New Ways of Working. Through Project Athens, Qurate Retail Group adopted new ways of working and embraced a culture of transparency, rigor, pace and continuous improvement. As QVC Group, the company will maintain the discipline established and continue to pursue efficiencies to fund its growth. The company is extending this rigor to its Cornerstone brands through a transformation plan conceived to grow revenue and OIBDA.
With the transition, QVC Group will operate the same portfolio of brands it did under its former title: QVC, HSN, Garnet Hill, Grandin Road, Ballard Designs and Frontgate. The company will continue to operate as Qurate Retail Group until Q1 2025 when it will officially become QVC Group.
“Through our new growth strategy, we will purposefully intensify our already successful efforts in social and streaming to reach fast-growing audiences,” David Rawlinson, president and CEO, Qurate Retail, Inc. “Strengthened by Athens and inspired by shopper behaviors, we are expanding our core for the next era of growth 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.”
Pictured above: An HSN segment featuring the Emryn House private-label home decor brand.
