LG’s Livestream Shopping App Brings QVC, HSN to Smart TVs

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LG Electronics is getting into the livestream shopping craze. On Monday, the U.S. division of the South Korean tech giant launched an app that lets shoppers buy from QVC and Home Shopping Network through their LG smart TVs.

“We created the Shop Time app to make the digital shopping experience even easier and more convenient for LG smart TV owners,” said Matthew Durgin, senior director North America smart TV partnerships for LG Electronics USA. “We are excited to have Qurate Retail Group, a leader in the video commerce industry, and their popular QVC and HSN networks on board as we begin this journey.”

The content primarily comes from QVC and HSN, along with two smaller retailers. Opening the app takes shoppers to a livestream of QVC’s main channel, while HSN content is available in the programming list in the menu.

Users can save products, see curated recommendations and use a “shop by mobile” feature for products they see on their TV screens. People merely select the product using the remote and send a text message that links to the product page on QVC or HSN. LG’s Magic Remote lets people point and click.

The app carries both livestream and on-demand content across sections like “Top Deals,” “Hot Picks,” and “Popular Shows,” along with a deep link to QVC/HSN’s streaming service under “Partners.”

Shop Time works on current LG smart televisions and those going back to 2016, including its OLED display series. This compatibility means the app could reach millions of U.S. households, landing in as many as 7 million LG smart TVs, according to Qurate’s partnership announcement.

Livestream shopping via online video has been likened to a modern equivalent of the home shopping experience on QVC and HSN TV channels, so it’s no surprise that Qurate would move into LG’s smart TV app, which bridges the two. And, in fact, the company said it sees the deal as a “milestone in our ongoing drive to engage with consumers wherever they are via livestream and video-on-demand platforms.”

“Shop Time gives our customers more ways to buy what they want, when and where they want, and allows us to reach a whole new audience of LG viewers,” said David Apostolico, Qurate Retail Group’s senior vice president of platform strategy, development and distribution.

The LG app is far from QVC’s first online push. It was one of the first big retailers to broadcast livestream shopping on Facebook Live — which, the company said, now averages 400-plus live hours weekly — and among the first to make use of Facebook’s Live Shopping feature. QVC and HSN are both working to add a shop-by-mobile feature into its own streaming service, which covers LG devices, Roku and Amazon Fire TV.

Next year, the home shopping platforms plan to launch in-app purchasing that allows customers to buy without leaving the streaming service, followed by voice commands at some point in the future.