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Posted: Sat, October 19, 2002
Sky provides new portal for retailersThis month, Sky Active will launch an integrated TV shopping service that will allow any retailer to offer products to UK homes with digital receivers.The Sky service, which has been developed with e-commerce experts Altura International, will be called 'Christmas Gifts', and will be the first service to support the use of `T-vouchers'. Tobin Ireland, Commercial Director at Sky Interactive, comments: "The new service opens the door to retailers of any size to sell their products on Sky Active. There has always been a demand for shopping services on TV; now we have a solution that will give viewers the breadth and depth of product range that they are looking for and enhance the overall retail on offer. Retailers can expect fast set-up and launch, minimal investment, and commercial terms based on results." Sky is particularly keen to stress how the new service can effectively be used to promote products. "The direct marketing opportunities that the new service opens up are enormous," says Mr Ireland. "Not only does Sky Active offer on and off platform promotional and marketing support, the introduction of T-vouchers will allow retailers to use conventional direct marketing strategies and promote specific products effectively." John Pincott, Managing Director of Altura International, adds: "The beauty of the service is that no shop is too big or too small to retail their products to a mass TV audience enabling Sky to offer a huge range of new products and brands." The new service will provide four ways for the customer to shop, with the opportunity to `Choose a Shop' from a range of branded stores, to select a product from `Category A-Z', to find a product by searching with key words, or to visit the `Top Gift Ideas' promotional section. Sky Active already incorporates a host of enhanced TV applications such as Sky News Active, Sky Sports Active, Sky Movies Active and services such as email, SMS messaging, games, banking, shopping and betting. The new Christmas Gifts service has the potential to reach a huge number of customers sitting comfortably in front of their TV sets: around 6.1 million homes in the UK and Ireland currently have Sky digital, and it is estimated that 39% of all UK digital satellite subscribers use Sky Active each week. For more information on Sky Active and its new service, visit: http://www.sky.com/skycom/home/ |
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