that cant be 1,000 customers in 6 months?
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Notes from Qurate’s Q2 2024 earnings report and call (Part 2):
Product Category Performance:
Jewelry +12%
-successful Fire Light Lab-Grown diamonds and the Today’s Special Value for UltraFine Silver
Home -1%
-soft demand for gardening and food
Apparel -4%
-soft demand for clearance in spring apparel
Accessories -5%
-lower demand for loungewear and handbags
Beauty -9%
-lower demand for Bath & Body
Electronics -11%
-softness in computers and smart health
“Our customers responded less favorably to clearance apparel, swimwear, handbags and higher cost items such as mattresses and furniture as well as lawn, garden and crafts.”
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because they are not discounting enough, consider that many things can be found on eBay for less while still for sale on Q.com
don’t they know that
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They report as Last Twelve Months, as of the quarter-ending date, so it’s like a rolling rate of new customers acquired.
In this report, they said they gained roughly 1,000 new customers more during the 12-month period from July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024 than they gained during the period from April 1, 2023 - March 31, 2024.
So, their acquisition rate improved from Q1 2024 to Q2 2024, but the difference in actual customer count was only about 1,000 customers.
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Notes from Qurate’s Q2 2024 earnings report and call (Part 3):
Customer Counts:
New customers up 7% year-over-year. That’s good! However…
- Total customer count down 4%
- Existing customer count down 10% (90% of sales come from existing customers).
2-year numbers look worse (2024 Q2-end vs. 2022 Q2-end numbers):
- New customers down 11%
- Existing customers down almost 23% (again: 90% of sales come from existing customers)
- Total customer count down 16%
To quote one analyst I read: “Their customer counts are melting.” Not a good long-term trend for a retail company.
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I belong to the official QVC / HSN survey group, which I like a lot overall, but anecdotally, things there have suggested things are not rosy in Q-Land.
First, you get points for every survey you complete, and on the whole, it’s decently generous, usually 100–150 pts. for surveys about products or marketing campaigns and 50 points for twenty-second weekly surveys about reactions to TSVs / TSs or simple questions like, “Do you use any streaming services?”
When I joined, 100 points equalled a dollar whether you took that as a store credit (annoyingly, though I prefer QVC, I was recruited by HSN so can only get HSN credit…but that’s beside the point) or a gift card that could be a Visa gift card or specific to a long list of businesses, the only caveat being you have to cash out in $5 increments. I have gotten several hundred dollars in credits and gift cards in three or four years and enjoy being able to use an official platform to complain about prices, crappy return policies, shipping fees, etc.
However, about six months ago, they changed the redemption structure. 500 points still translates to a $5 HSN credit, but you now need SIX hundred points for $5 in non-HSN / QVC gift cards. The unbelievable cheapness in that move still galls, esp when we are locked in to either HSN or QVC.
But the other thing that is suggestive to me is that they stopped sending alerts about surveys, so if you forget to check, you can miss them. And they have way fewer of them lately. They usually had product surveys three times a week. Now they might have one, and it’s often short. They also used to do a fair amount of product testing, where you would get a free product in exchange for a review. I got to sample a few pricey beauty products and some jeans, which was great.
Not sure if it means much, but I feel like they laid off some of their marketing staff and are just going all in on badly designed products at crazy prices. Good luck, I guess.
P.S. If you get a QVC or HSN email with a qualtrics survey link, it’s not only legit, it’s what they use to recruit for their marketing group. So if they don’t kill the program and you get such an email, go for it.
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I found some of the comments made by Qurate reps (including CEO David Rawlinson) interesting in that this was the first time they seemed to acknowledge that economic conditions (e.g., inflation) were impacting their customers’ buying behavior. That was quite a contrast with early 2023, when they essentially said that their customers were affluent enough that those conditions would not affect them, and Qurate was not seeing any resistance to raising prices to increase margins.
Some of the comments from the transcript:
“(Challenges include) variable interest rate environments and the effect that has on spending, unemployment rate taking up, continued pressure on housing.
Obviously, a lot of things going on in the external environment, elections around the world, the Olympics, other things that could affect consumer sentiment. I would say the biggest things we’re seeing from our consumer are continued – being very choiceful. That’s not quite the same as the pocketbook being closed but it does mean that you have to really excite. When our customer is excited, there’s not necessarily massive price sensitivity. We’re continuing to be able to sell at volume, high-priced electric bikes at times, high-priced jewelry at times.
But on the margin, the willingness to make purchases where she is not extremely excited by the value, I would say, is softer than it has been. I would say anything that feels more like a necessity continues to have reasonable demand. We also see a little bit of trading down and a little bit of value seeking, not extraordinary. We haven’t seen, for example, a big fleet of clearance, but we are seeing maybe a touch more price sensitivity at things around our average sale price.”
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People are finally listening, and realizing, that they actually can do better elsewhere.
There will always be the colony of boozy, whiskey swilling, cigarette smoking older women (not to confused with the over 5O+ and fabulous crowd) who stay up until 4:00am ordering massive quantities of Valerie Parr Hill and SusanG merchandise.
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They’re not getting many orders for clearance merch because they don’t discount it enough. Clearance pricing is typically only 10% below regular price - that’s not much of a sale, especially when you can find the same stuff elsewhere for much less.
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QVC clearance items are a joke. Lowering their prices by 5.00 is not clearance.
Graver, Isaac and Kim Gravel all have the same designs basically…QVC has been selling those same D&C Pants in 32 colors since I started watching in 1999. Every pant is knit, prima belle, pull on whatever you want to call it and sizes are inconsistent.
With over 50 and fab, bringing in Susan Nolan, who knew her, it’s no wonder sales are tanking, and they can’t bring in new viewers. Their formula hasn’t changed in 25 years, just the show names.
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David Rawlinson is a master at corporate babble-speak, but “choiceful?” Customers are so choiceful that they’re spending their money elsewhere. How about a PLW message tee for all the women who aren’t shopping at the Q for so many reasons? I “designed” the one in the middle for just that purpose. I call it the “David Rawlinson.”
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I read that Valerie Hill, Doll 10 and Kim Gravel are their top sellers. Of course, Kim Gravel is on every day.
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Doll 10?
She’s not on as much
Yes, that is what has been reported
I’ve never heard of Doll 10.
It is Doris Dalton’s make up line. Also, she sells on HSN.
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Thank you for detailing this report
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They are doing this newly named thing on Q2. Clearance Outlet. Which could be a good idea if the discounts are good enough, as other people are saying here. They had under $20 items on this Outlet thingy - I didn’t have time to watch today but if they had good clearance prices and free shipping? I ordered a blouse because of free shipping (I’ll review on product thread, still waiting for Isaac top). “Trading Down And Value Seeking” I get value-seeking but are we trading down because we are shopping elsewhere, according to Qurate, or are we trading down to other brands on Q and HSN.
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they need to do a big clearance day mark the stuff down do a shopping cart with free or reduced shipping over $50
they must be drowning in old inventory
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@Booney
Google’s AI thoughts on “choiceful”:
AI Overview
Yes, “choiceful” is an adjective in the English language that means making decisions and choices thoughtfully. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that the word was first used in the late 1500s, and the earliest known example of its use is from 1591 in the writing of Edmund Spenser. However, as of November 2023, “choiceful” is not listed in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary or on dictionary.com. The OED also notes that the word is not part of normal discourse and would be unfamiliar to most people, appearing only about 0.002 times per million words in modern written English.
So…QVC picks a word to showcase that nobody uses??
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