Happy Birthday QVC (UK)

Happy birthday home shopping
It’s QVC’s British birthday this week (Oct 1).
This global broadcasting phenomenon celebrates 15 years as the UK’s favourite home shopping channel, regularly watched by 22 million households.

Fortuitously, cake and candles are staples on this well-oiled selling machine – favourites include the Lime Tree Pantry afternoon tea variety cake pack (£17.25) or the Yankee Candle Mandarin home fragrance set (£36.10).

Loyal QVC customers have already received a special viewing invite via email to the channel’s Birthday Extravaganza – but, apparently, it’s an open invitation. ‘We’ve loved every minute of these 15 years and we hope you’ve loved them too,’ says the invite.

And loved them we have – to the tune of net UK sales of £352.6 million pounds last year. On the best ever day in the UK channel’s history, December 9 2007, it took more than 100, 000 orders worth £4.8 million.

So what is it about this peculiar mix of Quality Value and Convenience that keeps sales high, despite tough competition from internet and other home-shopping channels? Watch for five minutes and you’ll have the answer.

Life may be confusing, over-whelming and utterly tragic at times – but all is always well and everything makes perfect sense in QV- land. As the intensely ordinary-looking but enthusiastic presenters caress purr and eulogise over an array of mundane products, the viewer is lulled into a state of blissful, distracted contentment.

Here, as you relax to the sound of the casual banter between presenters, the only worry is whether to choose a Joan Rivers bee brooch with topaz crystal on its wings or whether to opt for leopard-print enamelled wings instead. Or maybe buy them both. Decisions, decisions.

Then for extra reassurance you can always check out customer comments on the website. ‘I received this lovely animal bee brooch and created quite a stir at my local town’s annual show,’ said one exceptionally satisfied customer.

Whether you have 2am insomnia, nothing better to do, or so much to do that you don’t know where to start, QVC will show you a world of items that you never knew existed – and that you never knew you wanted so badly. The meaning of life is reassuringly simple in QVC land – it’s shopping.