Why QVC is making such a big bet on TikTok

Almost a year ago, when QVC Group partnered with TikTok to launch the first-ever nonstop live shopping streams in the U.S., the company’s CEO called the move “our bet.” The subtext was clear: It was a bid to revive the shopping TV channel’s languishing business and rejuvenate its audience.

The rationale for QVC, best known for its namesake channel QVC and HSN (once known as the Home Shopping Network), was simple: to adapt its multi-billion dollar business to shoppers’ new habits. That has become urgent as TV generally has lost its hold on viewers, particularly in cable and broadcast television. Between 2018 and 2024, QVC’s and HSN’s main channels each lost almost half (44% and 47%, respectively) of the U.S. homes they reached. The company is heavily indebted and several media outlets reported last month that it was looking into ways to restructure its debt. Its CEO, David Rawlinson said in November that “returning our company to growth continues to be difficult.”

“What we realized is that our form of getting close to the customer was going to have to shift because where the consumer was spending their time was shifting pretty dramatically,” QVC Group chief business development officer Brian Beitler told Fortune at a panel at the eTail conference last month in Palm Springs, Calif.

Social commerce is behind about $150 billion in U.S. consumer spending right now and QVC wants in. Beitler sees scrolling on TikTok as analogous to surfing TV channels. When QVC started in the 1980’s, it succeeded by grabbing people’s attention as they channel-surfed past QVC or HSN and then clicked right back when they saw a product or moment that grabbed them.

“We could interrupt you with really entertaining and interesting live content about products with really unique and interesting personalities,” Beitler said. It’s a proposition that sounds strikingly similar to that of social media today—and to his mind, TikTok, with its 170 million U.S. users, allows for that in an up-to-date, tantalizing way. It was a more interesting partner than YouTube and Instagram, which are largely advertising-driven and don’t offer the direct “shoppability” consumers find on TikTok.

Last year, a few months after launching the TikTok partnership, QVC, a publicly traded company controlled by longtime media mogul John Malone, said some 74,000 TikTok creators had featured QVC products on their shoppable videos and livestreams, but Beitler declined to provide an updated number, saying it was better to focus on partners looking to build a sustainable sales channel.

QVC has clear parameters for the ideal partners to showcase its products on TikTok. “They should come across as having a level of expertise and a level of knowledge,” Beitler said, adding that authenticity in the storytelling is key.

But to be successful, he said, brands might need an attitude shift on how they work with collaborators. “The most difficult thing for brands and retailers, for those of us in this room, is you have to relinquish a bit of control,” said Beitler. “You’ll give them information on the product and trust them then to use that in an authentic and high-trust way with their audiences.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com