She was very nervous. Laura was the perfect vendor to pair her with since she is a former host. I hope that she doesn’t pick up Siao-ming’s constant laughing. At one point, when they were on screen together, it was impossible to understand either of them because of the laugh speaking of both of them at the same time. I wish her the best. She’s got huge shoes to fill. It would be perfect if Callie or Suzanne mentors her.

Especially now that most vendors, particularly long time ones like Jay, Adrienne, Lou Caputo, Ellen Bunner, Lori Leland, Terri Toner, Tom Wise, etc live in FL, have to travel at their own cost to West Chester, which is about 1 hour from Philadelphia, they are going to get them all in one lump of shows. Unless Lou has them show out of Caputo studios, of course. I know that’s why QVC has less variety all the time. Molly and Chas Dean bought homes in the West Chester area but not many others did because NYers like Dr Denese, Isaac Mizrahi, Dennis Basso can easily drive or take the train.

I hear that! And I noticed Nicole was constantly laughing the other day and it was incredibly distracting. When she was with Sam during the DG2 show, she was fine. I wonder if the producers are saying things in their ears. That would be on the producers to not do that, because it really doesn’t help sales, so I doubt they would do that. I eeally like watching Nicole but it was nearly impossible. The boards would be busy because as soon as someone posts something the least bit not positive, one of the first cliche comments come back as either “still you watch” or “I’d like to see you do their job”. Guess what? I don’t want to do the job. I buy from these people. I don’t want my salesperson to keep fakish laughing (or even real laughing) constantly while they are describing something to me to buy. If it were in person, I would turn and leave. If it’s on tv, I change the channel. But these cliche responses are ALWAYS on my bingo card, so there is that!

If you want to make excuses for her, that’s up to you. Don’t use the “she’s going through a change”. She just did, a few years ago, when she moved from ShopHQ in MN to HSN in FL. She was like that in MN too. Unprepared, mugging for the camera, talking over the vendor, exaggerating untruths when it helped her sales…she learned all those bad gaits from ShopHQ and Evine.

And her husband moved up with her. She just came back from a vacation with her family who has lived in CO for years.

Most brand new buyers are not going to come to this board – at least right away. Some will, but most will not.

YES, THOUSANDS of buyers. Not just for the ONE product, but if they are turned off of ONE product, chances are that they will not buy anything else from the brand. Their one chance to make a new customer can be made or broken by a bad first look. That number was the amount of new orders made during one visit.

And therein lies the issue. For most of us, we turn off the channel when she is on. That is our right. It’s also the fact that we LIKE shopping with HSN and we know the REASON we are turning off the channel and telling them (HSN) WHY they are losing money when a certain host comes on. One thing I learned, working for a vendor on the Q, is that when the sales aren’t performing in real time, that vendor gets manic or hard sell to try to get people to buy. They use the “we are running out” or “this is the last of the quantity”, or “it won’t be here by morning so buy now”, etc. They will try to pull tricks out of their sales arsenal to make the numbers jump. If the salesperson is not well liked, the numbers will jump a little, then plateau. That reads “unsuccessful but sort of worked”. Salespeople (like Amy, Callie, Suzanne, Lynn, Bobbi, Adam, Michelle, and even Debbie) who are well liked or opinions are respected, don’t have to resort to those tactics and they are known to “be able to sell anything”. Lou Caputo is a vendor who is known to be able to sell ice to an eskimo in a snowstorm. You might see him and a few other vendors (Liz Folce, the Danielson ladies from Benefit, Skip Borghese, etc) sell more with the “low-performing” hosts to keep sales up. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

With Emily and Sarah in particular, the three or four people on this board who are saying we don’t watch them for reasons X, Y, or Z, are only three or four people who are actually posting it on the board. There are literally thousands who are turning off because the hosts turn THEM off. They just don’t post on socials. The numbers don’t lie. HSN will keep the low-performing hosts on but won’t give them many prime spots (unless there is a scheduling problem, illness, etc.) Eventually, their numbers will dwindle and their contracts don’t get renewed.

Make no mistake – and I am ASSUMING to speak for most when I say that we WANT Emily and Sarah to GET BETTER. That’s why we are being so adamant about why we are turning them off.

I didn’t like Debbie at all when she started. She was a little abrasive – but she’s a BIG personality and she HAS toned the yelling down a tad. So the feedback either worked or she realized things and adjusted. I now can watch her without yelling at the TV (kidding) and I don’t mind watching. Sometimes, I actually enjoy her and find myself giggling at some of her comments.

Just my personal insight into what I know to be true in television retail and my own reasons. Just because we don’t say everything’s grand and we like so and so, she’s so pretty, etc doesn’t mean we hate the host. It just means there could be things that could make them better if their numbers are down. Bottom line: it’s NOT personal. We want HSN to succeed. We don’t want them to become QVC and turn into the laughing stock of TV retail.

You are very welcome to disagree with me, but it’s not okay for ANYONE to not allow anyone else to have an opinion. Ultimately, this is HSN’s board and it’s about SALES.