Mobile Trumps ECommerce Sales For QVC

It’s no secret the internet and smart devices have revolutionized the way consumers shop.

While most retailers are just at the beginning stages of starting to tailor yearly strategies to focus more on eCommerce sales, there is one area of retail where this may not be quite as effective.

Televised home shopping networks like QVC are seeing a different pattern emerge among their buyers. In its recent earnings report, QVC Group shared that Q4 sales being made via mobile have increased from 51.6 percent in 2015 to nearly 60 percent in 2016. For the entire year’s sales, mobile sales increased to 58.4 percent up from 50.4 percent in 2015.

While there was an uptick in mobile sales for both Q4 and all of 2016, direct eCommerce sales remained stagnant. With QVC’s digital efforts focusing on a mobile-first strategy and putting in major work to optimize mobile, it’s clearly the company’s preferred strategy.

As most consumers have their phones near them when watching television, this move makes sense for the company to take advantage of. This is something the QVC Group is keenly aware of and is taking action to ensure a solid path forward.

QVC’s CEO, Mike George, spoke with investors on its recent earnings call about its mobile-first strategy and its plans for the future. He said, “As mobile continues to be the fastest growing part of our business, we’re leveraging our multiyear investment in both talent and technology by continuing to increase the amount of personalized content our customer sees to ensure [we are] providing the most relevant shopping experience we can, even on the smallest screen.”

With mobile phones giving consumers access to large computing power in the palm of their hands, QVC’s 2016 earnings and other retailers moving into a more mobile-focused strategy, this brings into question how fast most will make the transition. We expect to see several stories over the next year or so on the various ways in which businesses and retailers put their best mobile foot forward.