Joseph Segel
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Joseph Segel (1931—) is the founder of QVC, an American television network.
[edit] Early life
At the age of 13, he started a successful printing business. At 16, he entered the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. By the age of 36, Joe was worth over a million dollars and controlled several businesses. He started the National Commemorative Society which marketed limited edition collectible coins. He came up with the idea after seeing lines of people at banks trying to buy up the last silver dollars. Later, he developed the General Numismatics Corporation to mint the coins for the growing number of collectors. GNC became the Franklin Mint in 1964. At the Franklin Mint, Segel developed many successful collectibles ideas. He developed products and collecting schemes to attract repeat customers to the gasoline pumps for some of the major American oil companies. He also minted coins for the casinos of Las Vegas.
Segel founded the Franklin Mint in 1964 with an initial investment of $21,000. The Franklin Mint that produces everything from collectible car models, porcelain dolls, a luxurious edition of the Monopoly game, etc. for the mail order business, posted sales in 1991 of $500 million. He left the Franklin Mint in 1973. Many former Franklin Mint executives are in leadership positions throughout the electronic retail industry.
[edit] QVC
Joseph Segel at sixty-three years of age, was interested in developing a new form of direct marketing business. He decided to start QVC ("Quality Value Convenience") after watching a videotape of the Home Shopping Network. Immediately, he identified improvements that could be made in everything from the items offered for sale to the hard sell manner of the presenters.
In 1986, Segel raised over $20 million to start QVC. Initially, Segel lined up 7.6 million TV homes for the November 24 launch, by offering cable companies stocks for as little as 20¢ a share. Publicly offered at $10, QVC stock closed its first trading day at $20 per share. QVC began November 24, 1986 from 7:30 p.m. to 12:00 midnight. The first broadcast was carried by 58 cable systems in 20 states. The stock awards were the reason that both QVC and HSN ended up with partners like TCI's Liberty Media (worlds fourth largest TV company) and Comcast (39th largest), which are America's largest cable operators. To lend credibility to the new company, QVC made a two year deal to sell Sears products.
Segel demanded that the Presenters sell by informing, not pressuring the viewers about the product. This meant that presenters would have to study each product, explain the many benefits of the product, and know the products sales history in order to make the sell more informative and entertaining. All this in order to sell the QVC way. There would be no hard sell and unlike HSN, customers could purchase any time, there would be no last minute price cuts, and no high pressure tactics.
QVC started with 25 employees who would finish a regular day's work, then moonlight as order-takers, receptionist or box-packers. The President of Electronic Retail Doug Briggs, who came over from the Franklin Mint with Segel recalls how he would answer calls, take inventory and pack products. If a product was selling well, a yellow light would flash and everyone from secretaries to vice presidents would go to the phones. In 1986 there were 17 other new shopping channels, only one would survive, and that one was QVC.
Later that year QVC grew to 370 employees.
In late 1989, Segel decided that the next important step in expanding QVC's sales potential would be to acquire Cable Value Network. Based in Minnesota, CVN was QVC's closest competitor and twice its size. CVN was bought by QVC for $380 million.
The first few years were difficult and QVC almost went bankrupt after the first six months. The purchase of CVN that was once described as a python swallowing an elephant, gave QVC a loss of $17 million for the following quarter. The move to expand was a necessary gamble for QVC's survival.
The gamble paid off. Today QVC employs a total of over 10,000 people, and does around $7 billion in business annually, making it the second largest American television network.
Joseph Segel retired from QVC in 1993.
