For decades cable TV operators have been touting the promise of interactive television (ITV), in which viewers could use their remote control to make a purchase as instantaneously as they change the channel. By eliminating the need to, say, pick up the phone after seeing a phone number flash across the screen, as is the case with infomercials, interactive TV could lead to more impulse buys, argue advocates.
So far, however, interactive shopping has been about as popular among consumers and cable operators as pasta at a convention of Atkins followers. Nonetheless, Time Warner Cable is giving it a go. The cable operator introduced eBay on TV last Thursday to about 50,000 customers in Austin, TX, who already rent set-top boxes from the company and subscribe to its digital video recorder service.
The introduction marks first deal for Plano, TX-based Biap System's eBay on TV service, which both the company and TWC were couching as a "trial." The service is free for the time being.
The service allows users to track their bids and accounts via a remote control-accessed screen on their TV and submit a new offer if they found their bid topped. Users can access their eBay accounts and check on the status of current bids, but not search for items.
Cable operators have put ITV shopping services on the back burner in order to concentrate on more immediately lucrative businesses such as digital cable, high-speed Internet, and telephony. Shopping became the forgotten killer app of the convergence era. Almost every ITV vendor marked presentations with a reference to letting viewers buy "Jennifer Aniston's sweater," a cliche that observers eventually used to mock the dormant industry.
But Biap is sure eBay will help jump-start the category now that competition from satellite and eventually telephone companies is fueling operators' renewed interest in shopping and other ITV services. "When people think of the Internet or the Web one of the first things they think of is eBay," says Dan Levinson, Biap's executive vice president of marketing.
Enhanced competition isn't the only reason that cable operators may be more willing to retest ITV. Analysts such as Gary Arlen, president of Arlen Communicaitons, note that the rise of e-commerce has made consumers more comfortable with buying things from a screen.
In fact, Sharper Image Corp. was banking on that when it launched its own ITV channel--named, appropriately enough, Sharper Image ITV--in February, on satellite TV programming provider Dish Network. “Much like e-commerce,” Sharper Image senior vice president of marketing Roger Bensinger said at the time, “interactive TV shopping is available 24/7, and you don't have to get off your couch to do it.”
