America’s largest home TV shopping group, QVC, has filed for bankruptcy
The business lost its edge as linear TV faded into the background, before TikTok Shop closed the curtain... almost.
After decades of broadcasting directly into people’s homes, the OG TV shopping company, the QVC Group, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last Thursday, following years of declining viewership and stiff competition pressuring its e-commerce business.
Per the company’s statement, the filing is part of a prearranged plan that will reduce more than $5 billion of its debt load and allow it to keep operating with “a more appropriate capital structure.” It’s also another step on the company’s path to transition from TV and more toward live social media retailing, as it looks to keep up with competitors like TikTok Shop US, where the QVC Group has become a top seller over the last year, according to management.
End of an era?
Though the rise of the internet had long been threatening to eat away at the group through the years, QVC sales were holding up surprisingly well on the face of things, with 2020 marking its best sales year ever when most of us were stuck at home, bored with a little more cash to spend in the pandemic. Sales have since climbed down from that $14 billion peak, however, as e-commerce alternatives and cord-cutting took their toll on the business.
Clearly, as the company has now realized, there are limits in how far you can lure younger customers through a dying media structure, especially as newer competitors catch the eyes of bored home-dwellers looking for retail therapy and a light entertainment fix. TikTok Shop, for instance, with its similarly informal sales pitches from personable presenters, brought in more than $15 billion in the US alone last year, capturing some 400 million active consumers around the world, per reports.
It’s little wonder, then, that the QVC Group is now attempting to catch up with these trendier upstarts on their own turf, even if all they’re doing is a more online version of the sort of selling that QVC pioneered. The company has now launched channels on Amazon’s streaming app and started streaming 24/7 on TikTok. Just over a year into its efforts, the pivot is already showing results: QVC has reportedly added nearly 1 million new customers in the US through TikTok and has also supercharged its streaming-related sales by 19% in 2025.
