Amazon reportedly eyeing QVC rival Evine Live

Dive Brief:

• Amazon is considering acquiring home shopping network Evine Live, TechCrunch reports, citing unnamed sources.
• Last year QVC-owner Liberty Interactive Corp. and HSN Inc. merged to create the number three company (behind Amazon and Walmart) in e-commerce and mobile commerce, executives there said at the time, with $7.5 billion in online sales and $4.7 billion in mobile commerce revenue.
• In emails, Amazon and Evine each declined to comment to Retail Dive on the rumor.

Dive Insight:

Considering the shadow the QVC-HSN merger has cast over Evine, the much smaller television shopping network would get a huge boost from an Amazon takeover. And there’s a lot in it for Amazon, too.

With the deal, Amazon would have a much easier time reaching the aging, but high spending baby boomer crowd, which the e-commerce giant has actually struggled to connect with, according to Matt Sargent, SVP of Retail at consulting firm Magid. Less than a third (31%) of boomers are Amazon Prime members, compared to 54% of millennials and 41% of Gen Xers, according to Magid’s research.

In fact, the cohort of older consumers, who often find processing loads of information more difficult, is growing as Gen Xers age, Sargent said. Many Gen Xers will behave more like Boomers, while others will shop more like millennials, he said. Plus, both cohorts aren’t retiring very early, so their earning power will remain robust for longer, according to Sargent.

Buying Evine could gain Amazon the narrative approach of a television shopping network that it would otherwise have to build up on its own, he noted.

“When you look at the mergers that Amazon and Walmart have made — and they’re both smart strategic players — they’re attempting to bridge gaps that would take them a long time to build,” he said, adding that if a deal goes through, retailers should look for Walmart to make a similar move.

“If Amazon does indeed acquire Evine, I think it will cause a domino effect among e-commerce entities looking to reach boomers,” he said. “The boomer and beyond generation is rapidly growing, and smart retailers put into place initiatives that capture that growth.”

Read the original article from Retail Dive.