Multi-platform video commerce retailer QVC is now livestreaming its shopping shows on YouTube TV.
The shows began last week, and QVC is currently the only livestream shopping channel on YouTube TV, a service that has attracted more than 3 million subscribers watching 85-plus channels across news, entertainment, sports, movies and on-demand TV shows. It is available across smart TVs, streaming media players, smartphone apps, tablets, computers, game consoles and smart displays.
Viewers can access the live shows on subscription live TV streaming services. The services, also known as vMVPDs or virtual multichannel video programming distributors, have a combined total of more than 8 million subscribers.
“We’re excited for QVC to bring our unique livestream shopping experience directly to YouTube TV’s viewers amidst their favorite programming,” said David Apostolico, senior vice president, platform strategy, development & distribution for Qurate Retail Group, which already livestreams content on QVC.com. “We’re confident that YouTube TV will bring new customers to QVC, while existing customers who are already on YouTube TV will be excited to see us there. We’re determined to meet passionate shoppers everywhere they are engaging with video.”
QVC is part of Qurate Retail Group, which is comprised of seven retail brands—QVC, HSN, Zulilly, Ballard Designs, Frontgate, Grandin Road and Garnet Hill. Qurate Retail is part of Qurate Retail Inc., the company formerly known as Liberty Interactive Corp.
QVC said the launch delivers on the brand’s “mission to be wherever its customers are.” It also is part of an extended collaboration on the broader YouTube platforms, as well as a part of its strategic plan to “expand the reach of its curated broadcast and video commerce experiences across new media and digital commerce platforms, which include over-the-top devices and services, shoppable apps, social media, digital over-the-air networks, mobile apps, and websites.”
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Livestream has already been adopted in Asia, especially in China, though it lags in the U.S. Much of that is because shopping malls are readily to American consumers who want to test and try on products firsthand. That all changed in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic as consumers began focusing more with shopping online as they sheltered at home. And it’s that shift in consumer adoption of options outside of brick-and-mortar that has some thinking that livestream shopping adoption could accelerate in 2021.
More recently, Stockholm-based software firm Bambuser on Thursday said it has raised $60 million to fuel product development for its Live Video Shopping technology that launched in 2019. Bambuser’s aggregate raise since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic is over $100 million. New investor Anders Holch Povlsen, the largest shareholder of Asos, is joining the board.