Dive Brief:
- Signaling the category’s importance to the retailer, QVC is adding new wellness and beauty brands to its product lineup this year, the live shopping company announced Jan. 27.
- The company is adding products across hair care, skin care, tools, supplements and wellness essentials. Brands new to QVC include K18, Make Time Wellness, Karma and Medicine Mama.
- In addition to its digital and on-air programming, the company is introducing a lineup of shows to highlight its most popular beauty and wellness brands through live demonstrations and advice from experts.
Dive Insight:
QVC is joining a sizable group of retailers vying for wellness and beauty customers.
Ulta Beauty tested the wellness space with dedicated shops in 2021, expanded the concept to over 1,300 stores in 2023 and spoke of further targeting wellness growth last fall. Additionally, Walmart recently added more options to its premium beauty lineup and Target said last month that it will expand its wellness assortment by nearly a third.
“As we head into the new year, beauty — inside and out — and wellness remain major areas of focus for QVC,” Rosalia Bucaro Polizzi, chief merchandising officer at QVC, said in a statement. “We're excited to welcome innovative new brands while continuing to deliver the fan-favorites our customers trust, making it easier to discover solutions that help you look and feel your best every day.”
As retailers venture further into the category, beauty brands appear to be resilient despite broader economic uncertainty. A Circana report released in December found that prestige beauty sales increased 7% to $8.1 billion in Q3, while mass market sales outperformed prestige, growing 6% for the quarter.
QVC’s wellness and beauty expansion comes as parent company QVC Group is implementing a turnaround strategy, which includes providing around-the-clock live shopping content, using technology to grow with new platforms and audiences, and developing “the leading live social shopping content engine.”
In an effort to reach some of those goals, QVC Group recently partnered with live TV streaming service Philo. The company announced in June that HSN and QVC became the “first and only livestream shopping channels” on the platform, available on mobile devices, desktop computers and TVs.
QVC Group’s turnaround strategy has yet to undo the company’s decline. In its latest earnings report, the company reported a 5.6% drop in revenue year over year in Q3 to $2.2 billion. Operating income for the quarter decreased nearly 61% from the year-ago quarter to $60 million. QVC Group CEO David Rawlinson attributed the change to being early in its turnaround plan and broader economic factors.
“We are early in our WIN growth plan, but continue to make progress. We reduced the year-over-year rate of revenue decline in our QxH segment despite the decline in linear television viewership, driven by revenue growth in our social and streaming platforms,” Rawlinson said in a statement. “Although we are encouraged by the progress we are making, deleveraging from our total revenue decline, tariffs and other critical investments, pressured our adjusted OIBDA.”
