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QVC increases its ‘Beauty IQ’

QVC Group knows the value of creating experiences — especially across its beauty category.

QVC has built its reputation on offering an ever-changing collection of brands and merchandise across the beauty, home, fashion, electronics and jewelry categories. However, it has to pull out the stops to move beyond the status of an “omnichannel retailer” and into a unified, “experiential retailer.”

“We don’t have online-, mobile- or television-centric customers,” Todd Sprinkle, chief digital officer, QVC Group, said during “Technology and the business: An essential partnership,” a session during the National Retail Federation’s “Big Show” in New York. “Our customer is a ‘QVC customer,’ and she shops across all channels — e-commerce, mobile and social.”

However, this task is not always easy in every category. One of QVC’s biggest challenges was creating a unified experience across its beauty category. Since the segment is a fragmented space, it is often difficult for customers to navigate and engage with featured brands.

To solve the issue, the company’s technology and business teams joined forces to launch a new platform called Beauty IQ. Described as the company’s first-ever multichannel platform dedicated to beauty, customers now have a destination that drives an interactive shopping experience across the beauty category.

The platform curates all beauty content in one place, offers beauty tips shared via social media influencers, and features live video streaming through Facebook Live, as a means of keeping the experience interactive.

“With access to customer comments during live feeds, we can respond in real-time, and use the information as a springboard to change content or merchandise throughout the day to meet the shoppers’ needs,” Mary Campbell, QVC Group’s chief interactive experience officer, said at NRF.

In addition to being a robust engagement tool, Beauty IQ launched within 90 days. This rapid development illustrates how QVC is striving to “raise the bar on innovation,” as well as create more relevant shopping experiences, according to Sprinkle.

“We are constantly looking at what our customers are doing and how they interact with us, then we use this information to transform our business in a way that is relevant to our shopping base,” he added. “It is our teams’ efforts that are transforming us beyond an omnichannel retailer and into an experiential retailer.”