We’re constrained by the fact that we can show only one product at a time on TV. This is interactivity in its crudest form. Once the customer has control, our business will explode.
Predictor: Briggs, Douglas
Prediction, in context:The 1995 book “The Information Revolution,” edited by Donald Altschiller, carries a reprint of the April, 1994, Fortune Magazine article “Will the Information Superhighway be the Death of Retailing” by Stratford Sherman. Sherman examines the mixed effects of the online revolution on the retail industry. The article includes an interview with Douglas Briggs, head of electronic retailing for QVC. Sherman writes: ”Douglas Briggs, head of electronic retailing for QVC, the popular TV shopping channel, can’t wait for truly interactive shopping to arrive: ‘We’re constrained by the fact that we can show only one product at a time on TV. This is interactivity in its crudest form. Once the customer has control, our business will explode.’ QVC’s enormously profitable main channel is nothing more than an ordinary cable TV program in which announcers hype jewelry, clothes, and housewares, plus the 800 number that will send it all home to you. The company is not converting its separate fashion channel into a testing grown for still more selling shows. This summer, rival Home Shopping Network is adding a second channel in which the sales pitches will be set in a mock shopping mall. MTV Networks and others are developing shop-a-thon channels too. None of these channels give viewers control over what they see when. In a truly interactive system, product pitches could be recorded in advance and stored, much like voice-mail messages today, in powerful central computers called servers. Then anyone interested in, say, rodeo belt buckles and cubic-zirconia adornments could zip straight to the relevant video. Interactive video is a medium made for merchandising. Want to see how those Eddie Bauer waders look on Cindy Crawford? Just click. In the market for a vintage El Camino like Bill Clinton owned in the 1970s? Click and ye shall find.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Economic structures
Subtopic: Shopping
Name of publication: The Information Revolution (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Will the Information Superhighway be the Death of Retailing?
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 76, 77
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne