Honest question; how large is QVC's reach and market and WHY is it whatever it is?

IMO, if you want to succeed with QVC, you should market a widget to the elderly/uneducated?

IMHO, one major reason for the why: payment plans for most anything they sell. I can't think of another major (online) retailer that offers this, QVC has the infrastructure and risk all sussed out. Consumers can get moderately priced ($200-$500) goods in their hands quick for a fraction of the regular price and get them locked into a subscription-style model. QVC may have a much higher return rate than other retailers, but I assume they also have a higher rate of people who keep items they may not use or like and keep paying out of laziness.

Huh. Based on the OP article -- it appears that QVC places all risk (returns) on the [consigner] (interestingly the conjunction of {contingency}+{Signor}) -- and as such it would seem this is where QVC's limited risk is found...

Basically the equivalent of todays "Gimme your content and I shall provide EXPOSURE via my instagram followers"

QVC Vendor Reference Guide (PDF) answers your questions.

https://vendorportal.qvc.com/documents/10184/0/QVC-Vendor+Qu...

That PDF doesn't answer any of those questions.

The only thing I saw that sorta was related to the comment you were replying to was "Our customers are affluent, educated, digitally savvy — and loyal. Over 90% of our sales come from repeat customers" other than the 90% sales figure, that's just meaningless marketing fluff, no data/figures was given to back it up. The rest was just about the logistics of selling on QVC.

Didn't see much of anything beyond a generic "educated, affluent" passing blurb regarding customers.

I was more surprised by how QVC requires vendors to pay thousands for QVC's own prep, like makeup and hair, among other things. Seems like a scam all around...except unfortunately the junk they vend seems to be selling.

It's definitely a little of both.

But its nice to see how far a little engineering development and solid (but not genius) marketing can take somebody.

It seems one of the ways to sell is to claim the invention, just like Apple https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/con-jobs-5-things-apple-didnt-...

This article is irrelevant because none of the claims there is made by Apple. It's what people believe. The closest claim is that Apple invented USB-C but again there is no official claim and all you have is John Gruber saying that he was told about it by someone who he won't name. In contrast, this product is literally what the manufacturer is claiming to have invented.

I don't think Apple claimed that they invented any of those things listed. Seems like a bit of a strawman.