Scanning The Aisles A Remote Control Away

The Age

Tuesday September 19, 1995

Megan Jones

Australians can now shop till they drop (asleep on the couch) with the launch this week of the first 24-hour seven-day-a- week home shopping network on pay TV.

The telemarketing and home shopping company International Media Management yesterday confirmed its home shopping channel would be delivered on the Optus Vision pay TV network from November.

IMM said its subsidiary, The Value Network (TVN), had appointed the US-born pay TV veteran Mr William J. Schereck junior as its managing director at the same time Optus Vision entered into a five-year non-exclusive arrangement for the cable delivery of The Value Channel.

Last week, IMM announced that TVN and Australis Media's Galaxy had entered into a five-year exclusive arrangement for the satellite and microwave delivery of The Value Channel on the Galaxy pay TV network.

The Value Channel would be Optus Vision's only home shopping channel and would be offered free to all Optus Vision subscribers, IMM said.

Mr Schereck, who joins TVN from QVC Inc, America's leading broadcaster of home shopping television, set up BSkyB's Shopping Channel in Britain two years ago.

``The basics are the same," he told The Age. ``We offer a vast array of products, which vary in price from very little to a lot, from maybe $US15 to $US1500." Tagged ``shopping without walls" the home shopping channel will also feature Don Lane and other figures presenting top brand names.

Mr Schereck said selling jewellery through home shopping was successful because people were likely to be intimidated by going into a jewellery store.

The range will include kitchen appliances, video cameras, CDs, electronic goods and computers as well as services such as travel packages and insurance.

As to offering diamonds from Tiffany's, Mr Schereck said, his company would not know what it would make available here until it began operations.

Mr Schereck said ordered products, which would be delivered within one week of ordering by phone, would come with a 30- day return warranty.

``The cornerstone of our business is that we offer quality products at competitive prices," he said. ``Within that set of guidelines, we have room to move."

Far from alienating retailers, Mr Schereck said they were keen to join in the home shopping service as they saw the advantages of working with the channel.

``Any product we present is an ad for their store," he said.

``We provide a valuable service for manufacturers and retailers through our on-air presentations. If it takes us 40 minutes to demonstrate a product properly, we will. It works both ways."

Mr Schereck said The Value Channel welcomed viewers who ``surfed" the networks to see what was offered.

But the core business for home shopping was repeat customers.

Although retailers argued there was a finite amount of disposable income in the community, Mr Schereck said television shopping expanded the available income.

``We expand the market and create sales. We are not taking business away from anyone," he said.

``The economists argue there is a finite amount of money in the universe. But what we find is everyone's income increases.

Productivity is a function of the velocity of the flow when money circulates. " Home shopping was not a ``zero-sum game", he added.