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By MARK ALBRIGHT, Times Staff WriterThe network will soon test interactive TV shopping, and buyers won't even have to make a call or log on to a computer.
Subscribers to premium cable TV can push a button and order a movie. So when will they be able to click their remote and buy some gemstones on Home Shopping Network?
TV shopping addicts might want to get their trigger finger in shape.
HSN is negotiating with several cable operators around the country to begin testing whether interactive TV shopping is ready for prime time.
"It's really up to the individual cable operators, but we're confident we'll have interactive TV shopping in millions of homes during 2005," said Tom McInerney, head of electronic retailing for HSN-parent IAC/InterActiveCorp.
The ultimate in impulse shopping would be quite simple.
"If you see something you want on HSN, just click your remote," McInerney said.
Customers would have to register in advance with their credit or debit card numbers, mailing address and other shipping particulars. The cable company would provide a specially programmed set-top box that would carry safeguards to prevent misuse. The financial and operational details are being worked out. (HSN pays for its presence on cable and satellite TV.)
McInerney mentioned the development while outlining several changes rippling through the TV shopping industry at the annual National Retail Federation meeting on Wednesday.
The promise of interactive TV - where the customer can talk back electronically to the TV - was supposed to be "the next big thing" back in the early 1990s. Many cable executives used the vision of a TV viewer watching sitcoms and clicking "buy it" on any piece of apparel the star was wearing or any piece of decor on the set as part of their pitch to raise billions to upgrade the nation's cable infrastructure.
But the movement ran out gas after a highly publicized Time-Warner experiment in an Orlando suburb flopped. That experiment included a TV shopping mall stocked by several chains such as Sharper Image and Eddie Bauer as well as the hardware for pay-per-view video.
Pay-per-view re-appeared years later, but any more talk of interactive TV shopping was drowned out by the growth prospects of the Internet and dot.com retailing.
While HSN has added more than $1-billion in on-air sales in the past five years, the St. Petersburg TV shopping network also is relying increasingly on hsn.com. With annual sales of $300-million in 2004, the network's profitable online retail site has grown quickly to provide 16 percent of the network's business.
While some customers only buy from the Web site, the network has found that most HSN customers shop through the TV programs and the Web site. Some buy while watching TV, but use the Web site for product research or to buy products not sold on TV. Some watch HSN with a computer on their lap tuned to hsn.com. Others stick only to hsn.com, which broadcasts HSN live in streaming video.
Most customers phone in their orders to call centers, but interactive TV would offer customers another choice.
McInerney also said the company was going to be much more aggressive about acquiring small independent Web retailers after patiently sitting on the sidelines the past two years. Likely targets are companies with innovative products suitable for TV shopping, fast-growing sites that need a bigger logistical backbone for support or would benefit from exposure through a TV network available in 85-million homes.
With the number of cable channels continuing to grow into the hundreds, McInerney expects many new TV shopping and action channels will debut. Some will be in auction settings. Others will serve narrower niches such as jewelry.