First impressions?

When you first starting to watch Q what impressed you in a good way?

Apart from the 30 day MBG I was impressed that when they made a balls up with the price graphics they always said they would honour any orders made up until that point.

Now of course they just tell you to suck it up and if you are too late to cancel you have the hassle and expense of returning.

I suppose they can no longer do this as there are days when virtually every bleeding item on air doesn't agree with the graphics/twaddle coming out of their gobs.

I also liked their 30 day MBG, I also liked the easy payments, back then money was tight.
I do remember my first purchase was a Diamonique cross pendent in 14ct gold with a chain, bought for £35!! it would cost about £135 now haha

I enjoyed watching the shows. I often found the demonstrations of interesting, innovative and clever products very entertaining to watch even if I did 't buy. And maybe because I was a lot younger and naive in the late 1990's I found myself being drawn in and convinced by the sales patter. These days I hardly ever get drawn in. I know what's coming up from on here and I buy online if I want it without watching the shows. I rarely watch more than 5 minutes of a show these days.

I started watching in 2004 while on long-term sick leave. (Incidentally it was virtually a life-saver during a particularly dark period of my life).

I remember vividly the day I realised that I'd seen a product before - it took 3 months for things to come round again. Looking back, they must have had a much wider range of brands and pieces per brand.

Eric's mum
I first watched Q and IW at the same time and was so impressed with the range on Q in comparison to IW where they seemed to have only a few things per day.

I haven't watched IW for years now but their offerings dipped radically. I remember they had a lot of jewellery but I don't know if they do anything like that now as every time I flick over it is a Kartcher or similar .

Because I live in a dump of a very small town I was delighted to see all the lovely things and bought everything that moved!

Honestly surprised how Q are still trading now that they have lost my trade since I must have kept them going single handily!

Good thread.

My first impression (roughly going back to mid/late 90's) was that qvc was fun and a interesting alternative to tv adverts. Also got the sense that I would see items (contraptions) you could not get anywhere else.

Now it's too polished, even down to their models doing choreographed movements and turns. Plus I feel like the manipulation is more insulting than it previously was.

ERICS MUM said:

I started watching in 2004 while on long-term sick leave. (Incidentally it was virtually a life-saver during a particularly dark period of my life).

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I just had to say that I can totally relate to this. I've been a Q watcher/shopper on and off since the beginning. I use to love all these innovative products and things you couldn't find anywhere else. Mr Cheetycat & I must have bought loads of stuff from Q when we were first married 17 years ago. Sometimes we used to even stay up some nights to find out what the TSV was as obviously we didn't have the power of the internet back then so every day was a new surprise. I also still have some lovely jewellery items bought from Q years ago that would be practically unaffordable these days.
I find now that as I am going through a dark period at the moment that Q is what's on my TV almost all of the time. Weird as it may sound, somehow I feel as if having those presenters chatting in the background is a bit of company and it's something you can just float back and forward to without having to focus on anything.

I started watching Q in the pre internet days, can`t remember exactly which year but a long time ago. I loved the jewellery shows and I was a typical magpie, anything shiny and sparkly attracted me and the jewellery was such good quality and good value back then. I was never a big gizmo or gadget buyer and had limited interest in beauty shows, in fact I still do. Consequently as the quality of their jewellery has decreased then so has my interest in Q. Nowadays I rarely ever watch live shows and even though i glimpse certain items online or look through the days listings, my interest has never been renewed. I guess Q has moved on and I have moved on but in totally opposite directions. If I want clothes, boots, bedding, perfume, dog food, bird food, meat pies etc etc then the World is my oyster and Q never enters the equation anymore. Sad really ...

I loved the jewellery. Gem week really was worth watching. The Grand Openings and finales you really felt it was something special. The Gems were substantial and many set in gold with alot of variety .Nowadays I dont bother with most jewellery shows. The TSVs generated excitement too ,but now are too repetitive.

Back then IW was also more varied and they sold a lot of jewellery,I bought a diamond ring which is good quality and I wear it most days .Both Q and IW sold quite a few diamond solitaire rings back then.I suppose they can't compete with the jewellery channel these days.

I also started watching in the late 90s and got really sucked in, not by the 30-day mbg but by the presenters themselves and the whole laid-back channel, the mistakes, the patter, the products that were different from everything else that was out there. It got to be a shopping habit with me and every week there'd be at least one, maybe a lot more parcels being delivered by my increasingly friendly Hermes man. I got more and more disillusioned the slicker, less personal, ruder (ie interrupting) and more hard-sell they've become and the presenters are really all becoming clones of what management seems to want. But the presenters have chosen to stay on and become these robot-type people so we now have a horribly sanitized version of a formerly watchable channel. I used to buy across the board but rarely buy from them. The net and even the GOHS does it for me now because often if you wait a few months you can buy the same sort of stuff, same quality, much cheaper elsewhere.

Great thread, btw.

I started watching around 1996(did not get cable until 1997), in a friend's house. First thought it was dodgy, how does it work???

Loved they accepted cheques and postal orders for payment.

As I am in Belfast it was hard to order somethings from mainland UK(they did do not deliver to NI. I tried ordering Aveda once and got my cheque returned saying they did not post outside mainland Britain!!!), this in the days before most had their own computers. The fun from the presenters who seem to enjoy their job and laughed and joked with each other. The two funny chiefs(can't remember their names), who demonstrated and fought over who was using what. It was far more relaxed now.

QVC today is like Tesco(look how that one is going), they are massive and push push for new customers rushing headlong. They don't want to stand back and fix simple things like the website etc, its tweet this blog that.

I came across QVC in the latter half of the '90s when we first got Sky. I was intrigued, and drawn in by the 30 day MBG and the availability of beauty brands in particular that I didn't have access to in a rural area. The majority of my purchases were jewellery and beauty, then Kipling. My first buy was a silver mother of pearl bangle for £16 which I still love to this day. With the diminishing number of jewellery shows and having decided to buy only certified cruelty free products about three years ago, my spending with QVC has dropped radically. I rarely watch at all now, will tune in to see whether a TSV from Kipling, or Lola Rose or Honora is of interest, but that's about it. Long gone are the days of QVC being constantly on in the background.