QVC Group, the West Chester, Pennsylvania, company that owns home shopping networks QVC and HSN, disclosed plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an annual report filed this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said it has reached a restructuring agreement with creditors and intends to file in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.
QVC Group said it aims to emerge from bankruptcy before the end of summer, though it cautioned that access to funding is difficult to predict. “We cannot assure that cash on hand, cash flow from operations will be sufficient to continue to fund our operations,” the company wrote in the filing.
The planned filing caps a years-long decline for a company whose television-based shopping model has been undercut by cord-cutting consumers, influencer-driven platforms such as TikTok Shop, and low-cost online marketplaces including Shein and Temu.
A steep fall from peak
QVC Group’s 2024 sales were down almost 30% compared with its peak of more than $14 billion in 2020. Shares in the company, which traded for over $900 a decade ago, were trading for less than $3 earlier this week.
QVC was founded in 1986 by Joseph Myron Segel. The name stands for Quality Value Convenience. The network built a following primarily of women aged 50 and older, according to Lawrence Duke, a clinical professor of marketing at LeBow College of Business, writing in a blog post. That demographic has aged and is shrinking, Duke noted, and competition has increased substantially.
The platform shift
Consumers have increasingly dropped cable subscriptions and look less to scheduled programming, Duke said. Those audiences have migrated to live platforms such as TikTok Shop, where consumers buy products promoted by influencers with large followings on Instagram and YouTube. Low-cost marketplaces like Shein and Temu have also drawn significant consumer attention, Duke wrote.
QVC has significantly expanded its digital sales and social media presence, but those moves have fallen short, according to the Associated Press.
QVC “competes in a crowded marketplace where attention is fragmented and switching costs are low,” Duke said.