Picking Up The Pieces In Home Shopping
MONEY manager Ken Heebner, vice president of Boston-based Loomis, Sayles & Company, once held more than a million shares of Home Shopping Network in his portfolio. This had an unusual impact on his life: in 1986 and early 1987, when the stock's price was in orbit, he developed an odd ritual.
''I turned on the network each night before going to bed,'' he said. ''Because the TV screen told me how fast items were selling, I could compute the company's sales per minute just by watching.''
Mr. Heebner no longer does those computations and now simply goes to sleep, comfortable in the knowledge that he sold his shares at a huge profit. Others who invested in companies that sell goods through home-shopping television programming were not so lucky.
In the last two years, stiff competition, hefty marketing costs and a shortage of available channels contributed to a shakeout in the six-year-old industry, and shares of industry leaders plummeted. Home Shopping Network, the Florida-based industry pioneer and by far its biggest company, saw its shares plunge 91 percent since January 1987. The price of CVN Companies of Minneapolis, operator of the Cable Value Network, and the QVC Network Inc., of West Chester, Pa., fell more than 65 percent from their highs.
''The performance of Home Shopping Network has put a black cloud over the entire industry,'' said Mark Friedman, an analyst with Homans, McGraw, Trull & Valeo in Boston. Indeed, many investors feared that the entire home shopping phenomenon may be nothing more than a fad, another marketing blip like the hula-hoop.
Almost 30 of the approximately 50 shopping channels have gone out of business in the last two years, including Caravan of Values, America's Marketplace, the Consumer Discount Network, the Television Auction Channel and Crazy Eddie's World of Home Entertainment Shopping Network. Retailers such as K-Mart, Dayton Hudson and Consolidated Stores also dropped off the air. In July the Fashion Channel, which had gone public nine months earlier, filed for bankruptcy. (It is still on the air, however, operated by CVN Companies.)
BUT things are not as grim as those numbers indicate. Through cable television and UHF stations in the largest markets, home-shopping channels now reach two-thirds of all television households. So far, more than 5 million people have become customers, and those shoppers are spending an average of $300 per household on home shopping. A fanatical 30 percent of customers account for most sales, said Larry Gerbrandt, an analyst with Paul Kagan Associates.
Although television shopping revenues and profits have not met the wondrous projections of some analysts, industry sales continue to rise briskly. According to Mr. Gerbrandt, sales were $451 million in 1986 and should reach $1.45 billion this year. Mark Riely, an analyst with Eberstadt Fleming, estimates that sales will rise 26 percent a year for the next three to five years.
''The big sales lift for home-shopping companies has come from getting on a growing number of cable systems and television channels,'' said Dennis Leibowitz, an analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. ''Now, much of the growth will have to come from getting more people to buy and increasing the size of their purchases.''
Of the 20 industry survivors, only six are considered major networks, and three - Home Shopping Network, Cable Value Network and QVC Network - control 85 percent to 90 percent of the industry's revenues. ''I don't know any other segment of retailing that is an oligopoly,'' said William Block, vice president of research at New York and Foreign Securities, who finds the niche attractive for that reason.
Yet as oligopolies go, this one may be rather precarious, for looming in the distance are interactive cable challenges from marketing giants like the J.C. Penney Company and the GTE Corporation. Both Penney's Telaction and GTE's Main Street are interactive cable services, which allow customers to buy tens of thousands of items offered by top retailers. When one selects an item, a still photo appears on the screen, accompanied by music and a voice describing the product. Both systems are now in extremely small test markets, but analysts predict that in the next 10 years, the systems - or some competing version - will generate substantial sales. Mr. Block predicted that the industry will continue to grow quickly because the number of homes with cable is rising at 8 percent a year and studies have shown that only 50 percent of those with cable know they get a home-shopping channel. ''The companies are spending more money on marketing now to make sure that people tune in,'' he said.
Mr. Riely said he expects them to succeed because consumers have already demonstrated such a passion for at-home shopping. ''Direct mail had sales of $55 billion in 1987,'' he said. ''And about 50 percent of all Americans have made a direct-mail purchase in the last 12 months.''
Gary Arlen, publisher of Electronic Shopping News, an industry newsletter, said another reason home shopping will grow briskly is that ''consumers want and need to shop at odd hours.'' He sees potential in J.C. Penney's Telaction service despite acknowledging that a test project in the Chicago area has been scaled down and subject to repeated delays. Penney's invested $70 million in the project, which serves only 9,000 homes.
''One of the great benefits of Telaction and GTE's Main Street is that they let you shop at stores you're familiar with,'' said Mr. Arlen. Participants in Telaction include Neiman-Marcus, Marshall Field's and Sears; those involved in Main Street include Brooks Brothers, Jordan Marsh and Spiegel. Sears and Penney's are attempting to tap the market in many different ways, and consider it so important that they are participating in each other's proprietary systems.
''Telaction sounds futuristic, but the future is here,'' said Mary Dale Walters, a spokeswoman at Telaction. ''Eventually this will change shopping the way the A.T.M. card altered banking,'' she said, referring to automatic teller machine cards. Clearly, perceptions have changed greatly since Roy M. Speer and Lowell W. Paxson created the first television shopping show, Home Shopping, in the Tampa Bay area of Florida in 1982, and in other parts of the country three years later. The original idea was to sell close-out merchandise at bargain prices; the items included porcelain knickknacks and teddy bears that played ''Love Me Tender'' when their bellies were poked. Tooting horns and cowbells were part of the show.
''When the cable industry first saw the raucous, carnival version of shopping that those guys from Florida were promoting, it was appalled,'' said Mr. Arlen. ''But everyone can overcome embarrassment if the size of the check is large enough.''
In the company's heyday, Home Shopping Network executives made precise forecasts about sales and profits, but almost none of them came to pass. Even Mr. Speer, the company's chairman, now acknowledges that ''no one on Wall Street believes anything we say.''
The company's woes were caused primarily by heavy debt, poor inventory controls and phone service foul-ups, analysts said. As troubles mounted, the company set its lawyers to work. One action still pending includes a $1.5 billion suit against GTE for faulty phone service, which Mr. Speer claimed was responsible for almost all of its troubles. Another is a suit against Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. and Michael Milken, head of its junk bond department, alleging that market manipulation was used to depress the price of Home Shopping's stock.
THE tumult in the industry has led to a rethinking of products and strategies. The industry is now offering more name-brand goods, and analysts say it will get much of its future growth from staples ranging from socks to soup.
Even at Home Shopping Network, close-outs now account for only 25 to 30 percent of sales. And at the Shop Television Network, about 30 percent of the items sold are not discounted at all. ''We just did a show on Jordache's line and sold everything at list,'' said Michael Rosen, chairman of the network, which is 63 percent owned by J.C. Penney. ''Television shopping can provide a service by bringing new items to people's attention that might not yet have arrived in their part of the country.''
While the Cable Value Network still believes in discounting, it now emphasizes electronics and fashion, rather than jewelry and collectibles. ''That's where the longevity in this business lies,'' said Theodore Deikel, the chairman. ''There's only so much cubic zirconia you can buy.'' Yet jewelry remains the most popular item sold on the channels, accounting for 41 percent of sales, said Mr. Gerbrandt. Over the Labor Day weekend, for instance, FNN: TelShop, a service of the Financial News Network, sold 107 diamond tennis bracelets at $2,000 apiece.
''The way people look at television shopping today reminds me of the mail-order business 25 years ago,'' said Mr. Deikel. ''At that time, many people couldn't imagine buying products that way. Look at how it's changed. Television shopping is like a direct-mail piece presented in a much better, more dramatic form. It will eventually be seen as a credible retail alternative, like catalogues.''
THERE are some hitches, however. Viewers may have to endure hours of exotic miscellanea before finally seeing the item they really covet. To address this problem and appeal to diverse tastes, most of the networks now segment their programming, targeting specific product niches to specific programs. Cable Value Network sells sporting goods on ''The Locker Room'' sand luxury items on ''The Millionaire's Hour.'' QVC runs nothing but special segments, rotating 60 different shows, such as ''The Cook,'' ''Gifts Kids Love'' and ''Craftsman Tools.''
To Home Shopping's Mr. Speer, such precisely targeted formats are nearly heretical. ''If everyone knows what's going to be on next, they won't buy impulsively, will they?'' he asked.
The special segments run by Mr. Speer's rivals are becoming more creative. FNN: Telshop has a feature called Insider's Look, which takes viewers outside the studio. ''The stand-up talking head is essentially wearing,'' said John Berentson, FNN: Telshop's executive vice president and general manager. ''So we've done programs on location, with experts at the consumer electronics show in Chicago. Sales during such shows are much greater than usual.'' To woo viewers, S.T.N. uses entertainment and celebrity presenters, including Pat Boone and Juliet Prowse. ''When we sold a three-record Vic Damone set,'' said Mr. Rosen, ''we talked to Vic and then listened to him sing for 20 minutes.''
Industry executives disagree about where all this is leading. To Mr. Rosen, the future lies more in advertising than in sales. ''Companies like Panasonic and Black & Decker, frustrated by how little they can actually say in a 30-second commercial, have already begun running sponsored programs on home-shopping channels,'' he said.
Cable Value Network's Mr. Deikel is enthusiastic about the medium's live demonstration capabilities. ''You could probably sell things like plastic surgery by telling people what it is, how much it costs and where to get it,'' he said. ''Then they could ask questions of the presenter. If they ask, 'What if I want to look this way?' You could bend the nose on the screen to show them.''
As strange as this may sound, Mr. Deikel believes his network's ability to direct customers to outside suppliers will become increasingly important. This month, the network began offering Hyatt Legal Service's LawPlan, a $119 legal retainer policy, through a series of three 10-minute ''infomercials.'' Hyatt Legal Services pays the network a flat fee for airing the spots.
For cable operators, who receive 5 to 10 percent of gross home-shopping sales made to their subscribers, the advent of video retailing has been a boon. ''Not only has it raised their income and the value of their stocks,'' said Mr. Leibowitz, ''but it has also added another feature that can boost subscriptions.'' THE BIG TV 'STORES' Some of the leading home shopping networks. In millions, except stock prices. 1987 1987 Number of Date on Stock Prices Network Sales Profits Households Air 52-Week Range Home Shopping Network $582.1 $29.5 50.0 July 1982 14 3/8-3 3/8 Cable Value Network 127.5* N.A. 20.0 Aug. 1986 17 3/4-7 3/4 QVC Network 112.3 (6.1) 14.9 Nov. 1986 11 5/8-4 1/2 FNN:TelShop N.A. N.A. 12.5 Sept. 1987 11 3/8-3 5/8 The Fashion Channel N.A. N.A. 10.0 Oct. 1987 N.A. Shop Television Network N.A. N.A. 4.6 Oct. 1987 N.A. *Figures represent eight months ending August 1987 when the company changed its fiscal year. (Loss
