QVC is betting on TikTok to help revive its live shopping business

QVC Group is launching the first-ever nonstop live shopping streams on TikTok in the U.S. in a bid to revive its business and broaden its audience.

Beginning Wednesday, hosts from QVC’s TV networks will also be featured on the app in addition to TikTok creators.

QVC is best known for its live shopping TV networks QVC and HSN (formerly Home Shopping Network) that once captured a large swath of viewers and consumers. It also offers streaming and online retail options. But as the company looks to broaden its audience and turn around its business, it’s shifting its focus to social media.

While live shopping on social media, namely TikTok, has exploded in China, it’s been slow to take off in the U.S. And the partnership comes as TikTok’s future in the U.S. is uncertain.

Still, the partnership announced Wednesday builds on QVC’s earlier team up with TikTok. It also gives TikTok Shop its first constant, live stream of shoppable content. QVC products have been available through the TikTok Shop since August, nearly a year after the app introduced the live, shoppable experience to its users in the U.S.

Since launching on the TikTok Shop, the company said more than 74,000 TikTok creators have featured QVC products on their shoppable videos and livestreams. Wednesday’s announcement is sure to expand that, said David Rawlinson II, president and CEO of QVC Group Inc.

“Everybody’s been talking about this being the next big thing in retail for five or 10 years but it never quite has hit,” Rawlinson said. “I think this is the start of it really hitting. And that’s the TikTok bet. That’s our bet.”

QVC Group — which is part of QVC Group Inc. and controlled by media mogul John Malone — is aiming to do more than bring its longstanding business of constant live shopping from TV to social media.

The deal comes as the company recently concluded a turnaround plan, known as Project Athens, after what Rawlinson referred to as a “perfect storm” of issues.

At the height of the pandemic, QVC’s businesses saw a surge in sales and viewership, like many retailers and media companies. But the drop-off was steep as stay-at-home orders lifted and consumers started spending on live events and travel rather than retail.

QVC’s problems were then amplified. More consumers cut the cord and fled the pay TV bundle, weighing on the company’s TV networks. The retail industry also had to contend with supply chain issues and heightened competition in online shopping from the rise of Temu and others.

Things worsened for the company in December 2021, months after Rawlinson took the helm of QVC Group Inc. A deadly fire ripped through the company’s North Carolina fulfillment center. QVC lost a half a billion dollars in inventory, Rawlinson said.

“I sort of felt like I was hired to transform the company, but because of this perfect storm of events, the first job turned out to be saving the company,” Rawlinson said.

Through a series of cost-cutting measures, QVC saw its profitability improve and its debt load ease. Still, the transformation is far from complete. Rawlinson noted during a February investor call that QVC has yet to “achieve stable revenue,” and that will be its main focus moving forward.

The drop-off in TV viewership has been pronounced. When comparing 2024 to 2018, QVC’s and HSN’s main channels reached 44% and 47% fewer homes, respectively, Rawlinson said on February’s call.

Last week, the company said it would lay off about 900 employees and consolidate its operations in its West Chester, Pennsylvania, headquarters.

The partnership with TikTok comes days after the company released its annual report to shareholders, which noted its focus on social media and efforts to shift the business.

“As traditional TV declines and a mix of video platforms takes a greater share of customer attention, we must hurry our expansion beyond TV to find growth. Our strategy is to transform QVC Group into a live social shopping company,” QVC Group Inc. wrote in a letter to shareholders in March.

In the letter, QVC said it would “intensify” its efforts in social media and streaming to notch $1.5 billion in run-rate revenue from these platforms in the next three years.

“Social is just the natural evolution of what we’ve always done,” Rawlinson said.

QVC’s audience and shoppers typically skew female and over 50. Last year, CNBC reported that the company signed a deal to add USA Pickleball to its platforms to capitalize on that audience and find new avenues to transform its business.

TikTok has seen explosive growth in the U.S., and the company said it has 170 million users. But its fate in the country remains unclear.

The Chinese-owned social media app is once again staring down at a deadline that could see it effectively banned on April 5, stemming from a national security law originally signed by former President Joe Biden that requires parent company ByteDance to divest its American operations.

The original deadline was Jan. 19, but President Donald Trump signed an executive order that granted ByteDance 75 more days to divest the U.S. portion of its business.

Although the future remains uncertain, creators appear to be cautiously optimistic this time around that TikTok will remain in the U.S., CNBC reported Tuesday. Trump has since said he may reduce tariffs on China in order to help move forward a deal in which ByteDance exits U.S. operations.

Even with the possibility of a ban in the U.S., Rawlinson said moving forward with the partnership on TikTok Shop was the best bet for QVC’s business.

“TikTok has a very widely penetrated user base in the U.S. We know a lot of our customers, and our future customers, are there, and we know that shopping is developing and growing very quickly in really interesting ways there,” Rawlinson said.

“So we felt like that’s the right way to try to change how shopping is done in the U.S. That’s the full calculus for us. We didn’t try to guess the future of TikTok,” he added.

— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this article.