QVC cancels Hang-O-Matic airtime and keeps $30k

Shocking right, so were we. We met QVC at the Housewares Trade show back in 2014 and the head buyer didn’t feel that Hang-O-Matic would sell well on QVC because of a previous hanging product. The other product they had was a 24 inch ruler that did not collapse down and didn’t go past 24 inches so in my opinion it was really big and hard to store and it was priced higher then Hang-O-Matic.  Needless to say, Jared and I were disappointed to hear the news but that did not stop me from following up with the buyer incase her needs had changed.

About a year later in 2015 our assistant buyer was kind enough to include HANG-O-MATIC in a QVC Sprouts competition. Where we and other products went head to head to compete for a spot on TV and the one with the most popular votes won. We were just starting out and didn’t have a long email list and I didn’t have that many connections on Linkedin so I pretty much begged and pleaded with everyone I knew to vote for us. Luckily we came in 2nd place and received a vendor App to move forward.

It was months and months of quality control and a lot of money spent doing it. We had to ship Hang-O-Matic overseas to let a lab test it for chemicals. They poured water on the metal tape and obviously it rusted and we didn’t pass. Hang-O-Matic is an all-in-one picture-hanging tool so it would never end up in water and lucky our buyer agreed with us and we were approved to appear in the future.

Finally that day came April 2, 2016!  Jared had to fly out to PA from CA for 24 hours in February to go through LIVE training, once passed he received an air date 5 days before to appear on April 2nd. However, we received the $30,000 PO in January, which was enough time for us to get the product ready. Back then we were still shipping out of our garage and had to package the inventory per QVC rules our selves. Jared read the vendor and routing guy after he worked all day at his Full Time job while I took care of our two year old.

The day couldn’t come soon enough. Since Jared was flying into Newark Airport, I decided to follow up with Bed, Bath and Beyond and pulled the old trick in the book…” Hi Buyer, my husband Jared is going to be in the neighborhood on Friday between 10am and 2pm, would you be able to meet with him”. I obviously name dropped QVC and the buyer was kind enough to write back and set up to meet with Jared. 

Jared flies into Newark and goes straight to Bed Bath and Beyond Corp, he’s sitting in the lobby waiting for 5 minutes before the buyer came out to see him and Jared hears his phone ding with a new email. He checks his phone and there it was…

Dear Jared,

We regret to inform that you will not be appearing on Sundays LIVE QVC due to the wrong labeling of your master cases.

WHAT? Can you imagine receiving that type of email 5 minutes before an important meeting and 2 days before appearing on national Television? 

We were both quite disappointed and Jared even offered to go into their warehouse and move the label to the right spot. But they wouldn’t allow it. They made us pay to ship the inventory back. We had to re-stick the boxes and pay for shipping back to QVC. And we did not receive a new airdate for another 5 months until 9/16/16. Which means that QVC had our inventory and they do not pay for it until it sells. So it sat there collecting dust in their warehouse while we were out that inventory and money! 

However, Jared came out of the Bed Bath and Beyond meeting with nearly a PO in hand and that’s how we got into all of their locations.

Jared went on to QVC and nearly sold out at the 4am hour and went back for 3 more appearances and was invited to appear in UK and had two appearances there. Needless to say, we had a wonderful experience after that and never mislabeled another box since.