Sundy afternoon rant

Ooohh what really gets my goat is when the benefit cosmetics hours are on and they wax lyrical about cosmetics, overrated, over priced rubbish. I enjoyed this mornings DIY show but became fed up of the constant repeating of 'thats impressive' by Katy pullinger

Everything is being pushed to it's limits just lately. Laura Geller hours on almost every day for one example, and if I see that Ruth Langsford promo one more time!!!!

i to am bored with beauty used to be a pleasure to watch now its boring and over exposed and the postage costs are daft

I'm VERY interested in all things beauty, but QVCs beauty presentations these days are beyond boring. There is nothing new you can learn... Hence I'd rather follow selected beauty bloggers (ones who actually have experience and opinions).

QVC are increasingly padding out shows with prerecorded trails culled from launches of BPotM as well as TSV. Then they have their trailers in some cases featuring seaons-old products which bear no relation to what you'll see in the show when it airs. They interrupt every hour at least 3 times, and the show finishes at 57minutes past the hour, so they didn't really ever do an hour... Now I doubt even 45 minutes are devoted to the brand of "the hour".

Beauty creeps into every type of show, including gardening and DIY, and the QVC powers-that-be need to rein it back. Just because it's their best seller doesn't mean that everyone who watches is wanting to watch beauty. If they think a predominantly female audience all behave in a homogenous way, they are sorely mistaken. If they think an audience with an average age north of fifty means we're all concerned with ageing, again they are wide of the mark... And even the most devoted beauty addict wants a break from hard-sell beauty hours presented by people who, judging from appearance, haven't got a clue.

I rarely watch, and when I do the mute is on 99% of the time. I used to enjoy a little unchallenging selly telly... Sad to say mostly I can stomach about 10mins before I reach for the remote.

What a big difference in the past two-three years. QVC is irritating rather than entertaining, and my spending has dropped dramatically, that's not to say it wouldn't have slowed down anyway, but QVC themselves have helped by making it so alienating for the non-social media using, less credulous viewer.

China Girl said:

Everything is being pushed to it's limits just lately. Laura Geller hours on almost every day for one example, and if I see that Ruth Langsford promo one more time!!!!

Click to expand...

I don't watch much but Ruth seems to be on every time I switch on. They used to show the hot picks of the day in shows but they don't do that now. They just churn out the same old clips. Its as if they are brain washing us.

Glad to know I'm not on my own ladies. Like others, my spending on Q is almost nil, pretty incredible from the ridiculous amounts I would spend around 10 years ago when jewellery and crafting were the big hitters. For me the cosmetic beauty prices are way too expensive, I'd rather browse in Superdrug than pay top price plus p & p, particularly lippys where I can try them on the back of my hand first ! But the main gripe is the constant barrage every day of these products, albeit with different show titles, and the tsv being interspersed at various times - particularly daft when after gushing over a foundation to be told the benefits of a Dyson !!!!!

Will join in the rant and have to say that far too many Beauty Shows on now! One can only use so many unless you're the main QVC Groupie! Guess Who?

Also, who makes up these schedules! Have said before that I feel they need to reignite their shows and presentations! Some are soooo boring of late! :mysmilie_490:

Agree. I hardly watch or spend now. My last splurge was a Tarte TSV and I have not been tempted by anything else. I used to have QVC on in the background but now I flick over and flick back again within minutes.

I am wondering if sky plus has made us all less tolerant of QVC. We are now used to watching mainly what we want without ads - having to sit through a whole QVC hour with constant promos and plugs just seems tedious.

I have to be honest, my spending in general on beauty related stuff has dropped. After throwing away too many products that were past their best and never even got a look in, and too many fillers from TSVs that just weren't right for me despite being so "universal", I have come to the realisation that it is best to buy things as I go along and when needed. I too try out products from Superdrug, and Aldi is another one, I have just ordered their argan oil range which is apparently 95% natural.

I remember buying two or more Laura Geller TSVs to stock pile until the next one, which used to be about 5 or 6 months away. Now they come around every two to three months. And are just boring.

Also, I hate it when you love a product and then they go and change the formula, all the while pretending that it is exactly the same. We're not completely gullible QVC!!!!

And if I'm honest, their P&P is now so expensive that a product would have to be truly amazing for me to part with my hard-earned cash.

OK, that's my rant over.

I rarely watch these too.If I switch on I usally switch off quickly.

Obviously beauty is their biggest seller, with a whole channel dedicated to the overpriced stuff, so why ram it down their customers throats on the live channel every five minutes? I only channel hop now, I haven't shopped with them for years but whenever I do channel hop I always land on an advert/promo, TSV or some sort of pick of the month, it's almost as if they haven't got enough products to fill a whole hour nowadays.

It surprises me how all the Beauty Products are the best Throat Gels, best Cleansers, best Serums, EVER!!!
Errr, don't think so buttercup but i guess it's part of the job!

Wish they would start to give the Customer more varied products and stay away form Fashions, Tat and the occasional Beauty! :mysmilie_5:

shopperholic said:

Obviously beauty is their biggest seller, with a whole channel dedicated to the overpriced stuff, so why ram it down their customers throats on the live channel every five minutes? I only channel hop now, I haven't shopped with them for years but whenever I do channel hop I always land on an advert/promo, TSV or some sort of pick of the month, it's almost as if they haven't got enough products to fill a whole hour nowadays.

Click to expand...

You might be onto something there Shopper ! with not enough products. How many times have we seen 'on advanced orders only', so their stock levels are always going to be low. This makes me think that they are not getting the Vendors anymore who want to sell on Q. We only had Kipling tsv's a couple of times a year, but now we get one a month ! the same with Yankee Candles, Mally, Dyson etc. I think with the limited amount of 'brands' available, there is a lot of juggling around of Q's own brands as fillers, but the choice of product compared to years ago is like a corner shop as opposed to a department store.

Like others on here, I was an avid Q watcher and loved their Gold and Silver jewellery days, and spent a small fortune on Crafting days; and then there were the Blue Moon shows where specialty products were shown. With this massive cut down in brands, I can't understand how they manage to keep on the same amount of Presenters ! - oh, of course, its the massive p & p that help pay their wages !!

I like the beauty shows, it's something that interests me and probably always will, but it has become very boring and staid. It's the same few products from the same few brands, at high prices with exorbitant P&P. I'll never understand how QVC will charge P&P on high value orders when no-one else does now. And I'm often surprised at how many products you'll get to see on a brand's own website that QVC never even look at. I'd still much rather have beauty over "fashion" at the prices they charge. I couldn't afford them, not that I'd want to. I'm confined to home a lot, due to poor health, and advocate that variety is the spice of life. This is why I dislike whole day events of a single product type, or those long, dull three-hour shows, even the beauty stuff, it's too long. I'm not going to make comment, other than a passing reference, to the torture that was 24 hours of "gardening". I record anything that might be of interest so I can skip through it and just pick out the bits I really want to see. I'm not worried about missing special offers as there aren't any! And that awful last show of Lulu's last night. JF was screeching about how we should all be buying 4 at once and then they cut the show off with another promo before they'd finished properly.

As a final note, despite loving the beauty, I have to say I'm less and less convinced that any of it works. Perhaps it's to do with having had two cataract operations and having bought a new, larger TV, but the people selling this stuff look terrible! Surely if their miracle wonder slop really worked, they'd all look like perfect 20-somethings? Most of them have bad skin or that leathery too-much-sun look, age spots, bad hair etc. I'm not perfect, far from it, but I'm not trying to flog product that's supposed to stop all that.

I've been with QVC since day 1 and it has gone way downhill. I'm not a business person but even I can see this can't go on forever, something in their corporate structure needs to change to bring them in line and up-to-date with modern retail.

Rant over (for now!)

Good points Moth!

I have also been with QVC since day dot and honestly think there's something been lacking past couple of years or so!
As an avid customer I am entitled to my opinion and have seen many friends and family thinking the same!
Don't enjoy it anymore and don't spend nearly as much now, so that speaks volumes!!! :mysmilie_1:

I like make up but the shows are ridiculous. Often the guests have shouty or squeaky American voices which get shriller as they compete with the presenters over-chat. They are so chatty about textures and coverage of foundations but never properly explain which shades suit which skin. Same with skin care. They rattle through the useage details so quickly, I can never work out in which order I should be using serums, pils, elixirs, cream etc.

I watch the Beauty shows occasionally, just not everyday!
Like to watch other things too, like Kitchen and some homewares!

ERICS MUM said:

I like make up but the shows are ridiculous. Often the guests have shouty or squeaky American voices which get shriller as they compete with the presenters over-chat. They are so chatty about textures and coverage of foundations but never properly explain which shades suit which skin. Same with skin care. They rattle through the useage details so quickly, I can never work out in which order I should be using serums, pils, elixirs, cream etc.

Click to expand...

Totally agree EM. The trouble is there are now so many 'ambassadors' for the brands, that they just give an overview of the products, probably because they know sod all about them. There's no doubt an agency for these people who get called upon when a talking head is needed. The increase in these 'gobby' blonde types who are drafted in to help out the presenter, has been noticeable over the past couple of years. Even more so when the brand owner fails to put in an appearance !!

ERICS MUM said:

I like make up but the shows are ridiculous. Often the guests have shouty or squeaky American voices which get shriller as they compete with the presenters over-chat. They are so chatty about textures and coverage of foundations but never properly explain which shades suit which skin. Same with skin care. They rattle through the useage details so quickly, I can never work out in which order I should be using serums, pils, elixirs, cream etc.

Click to expand...

I had the misfortune of catching the BPOTM presentation by one of the IT ladies and had to mute after about 10 seconds - it was squawking, never-ending stream of talking infomercial HELL. Fair enough they're passionate, but take it down an octave and breathe, for goodness' sake!

Given QVC boasts of having so many products, what I personally think would be more interesting would be to put together shows, whether for fashion, skincare, beauty, DIY, kitchen or garden would be to put together a "project" and present products to do that project in a logical order. So if you were going for a job interview - you could have foundation garments (their dreaded shapewear, for example) then suggested outfits for the interview, matching shoes, belts/scarves/jewellery to make a complete look... with the garden - creating a flowerbed from scratch - getting out the tools to help you clear the space, the compost etc to prepare the soil, the plants to put in the bed, the trellis or other items to shield the plants or to let them grow upwards, then somewhere to sit and enjoy the handiwork. They couldn't do this with guests from brands paying for an hour to sell their products exclusively... but a nice assortment of different brands showing you something you can do with what they are offering would be a different thing to do.

I also think the time has come that QVC could do with asking some hard questions about the freshness of their presenter lineup, as well as the freshness and relevance of their product and brand lineup.... If they are going to take an "out with the old, in with the new" approach to the guests, then they should be equally hardnosed and ruthless elsewhere in the business.

I also wonder if they need to stop simply taking on board so many US brands when the products are clearly not at all aimed at a UK customer. Clearly some of them sell, but are they selling as well as brands which are more in tune with UK tastes might sell?

QVC have been turning into a boring parody of themselves... it's getting to the stage where the pre-recorded infomercials which are cropping up all over the place on the tv these days are more entertaining than their live hours (involving more actual product demonstrations, more questions about how to use the product, more information about what the product has in it).

I find the TSV repeats every early morning for hours on end poor scheduling - so very lazy ...