QVC wants to be the next TikTok Shop

- Okay, everything is good now. Economy wise, right?

“From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.”

(upbeat music) In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdoll. It is Friday today. This one is the 17th of April.

It is always to have you along, everybody.

Okay, so look, everything is clearly not fine. Economy wise, one might even say it's gonna be a while before we get back up to fine economy wise. But we're gonna spend the next seven and a half minutes on this program, testing that premise.

Kate Davidson's a Bloomberg on a Swanson is it the New York Times? Hey, you too. - Okay, guys. - Kate, you get to go first.

There is a truce in various stages of being denied or reinforced by either one of the parties. And we obviously hope it holds. We are, though, a long way from normal, and I would like you to just expand on that for a little bit.

- Sure, so obviously the news from today on the straight of our moves reopening and the potential for a peace deal is undoubtedly really good news. I mean, we're seeing markets just surge on this news.

Of course, there's not a lot of nuance. Sometimes in the way that investors react, they're reacting, it's a big sigh of relief, right?

But ultimately, as you said,

it's just gonna take time for things to normalize. We heard from a lot of different finance ministers who were in Washington this week for meetings of the IMF and World Bank talking about how even if the war were to see some immediately and everybody shakes hands

and it will take weeks, if not months, before normal operations resume,

“you need to get tankers back to the straight.”

And it looks like from reports that we're seeing that people are already scrambling on this news, but it just takes time, logistically, to get things back to where they were. So we saw this big impact on prices,

that's easing somewhat, but it's gonna take weeks and maybe months for all the kinks to work out. - Honest wants, and if you are running a shipping company and you're worried about, first of all the physical threat, but also insurance and logistics,

what is your risk tolerance at this point? You've been cooped up in the Gulf for 45 days, whatever it is, what are you thinking about? - Yeah, I think it depends on the situation. So there are ships that have been stuck in the straight

and I think those could probably move through quickly if conditions start to open up, but for other ships, there's still a lot of uncertainty about this truth and it was formed quickly. It seems like it could quickly crumble.

“There are some inconsistencies the President had said,”

for example, that the US blockade will remain in place and tell negotiations are complete. Iran has said that it oppose the blockade, may take countermeasures against it. Also, I understand the route that's open runs close

to the Iranian coastline, whereas most of it, the main lanes that were used before are still have mines in them, and Iran is not necessarily able to locate all of those mines. So really still significant problems

for the shipping industry, things can get better, but as Kate said, most likely it'll take a matter of weeks, not days, and it will probably still be more expensive to ensure those ships there will be less traffic, less supply, which still means somewhat higher prices at least.

- Right, and things will be just congested, kind of globally, Kate. The Federal Reserve meets in about 10 days. They have said, the governor has been speaking and the regional Fed presidents,

that they're going to try to look through this energy shock. My question is, how they're going to do that with any sense of what's on the other side? Because as you pointed out, a couple of minutes ago, we're weeks if not months from normal.

- Right, well, I think it's interesting that in the past few days, I mean, you have heard more sort of cautionary, a more of a cautionary tone from some of them, New York Fed president, John Williams yesterday, said,

that it makes sense that the Fed isn't giving a lot of guidance on where we are headed.

The Fed always responds slowly to these kinds of things.

If markets are immediately doing a U-turn today, the Fed is like the opposite. They want to wait, they want to really see, if this is going to last, they want to see how it all shakes out. But they're really worried what we heard from Fed

given our Chris Waller. They seem to be much more concerned about the possibility that the higher prices, higher energy prices could feed through to other areas. And we even maybe have seen a little bit of that.

And the worry is that that leads to something more persistent and then it starts to affect and shape the way people perceive inflation, the way that the direction

And that's what they pay really close attention to

because that could feel more increasing price pressures.

“So I think that they're not going to make any,”

they're not going to make any sudden moves. And they may look through the shock if things start to improve quickly. But I think it will be a while before they'll feel comfortable cutting rates again, unless something weakens

materially, say, with a labor market that they feel like they have to respond on to sooner. - On a swancin, I want to get you to trade your sort of stock and trade, if you will, at the New York Times recently. Refunds, for tariffs, maybe coming next week.

And I guess my question really is, how, I'm assuming it's going to be messy. My question to you, the expert is, how messy is it going to be? - Yeah, I agree. It's going to be pretty messy.

So the government portal opens Monday. So we'll actually see the first refunds kind of start to move through the system soon. But everybody I talked to is expecting it to be a long process.

There's over $100 billion at stake here to be returned.

“There's a lot of complexity to the different entries.”

I was talking with some companies of the last couple days about their expectations, their difficulties. A lot of them are looking forward to getting that money back but they've just found the system really wonky so far. They're a variety of fees.

They've paid that won't be refunded. And they're saying it's really just hard for businesses to plan, not knowing when they could get this money back. Paying it was a surprise, getting it returned was also a surprise. And then of course there are more tariffs on the way

that the president is using to replace these, these loveies coming this summer. So yeah, I don't expect this story to be over any time soon and fortunately for the businesses. - On a really quickly, just on that last word, businesses,

these are refunds that would be going to businesses,

not you, me, and your neighbor down the street. - That's true, except in some cases, you may have gotten a bill for a tariff if you were importing something directly, I've gotten a lot of emails about that, like my sweater (laughs)

but yeah, typically it's businesses. There is a lot of uncertainty about how this kind of shakes out through the supply chain. So if somebody imported a product and then they paid the tariff,

they passed that tariff onto a customer, whether that's another business or a person, are you going to get, are they going to get any of that tariff back? And I do think we could see kind of a proliferation

of contract disputes between different companies as they try to vibe for some of that money. - Right, Kate Davidson real quick, we're still going down the line. I know your sound has been a little splotchy.

45 seconds on this next answer if you are still there. The United States has mostly except for some higher energy prices, been okay through this war economically. Europe and Asia not so talking about that breakdown and what you think it bodes for the global economy.

- Sure, well, talking again about just this gathering of finance ministers this week,

“I think there was a definite sense of frustration”

among the ministers there that the US is not really engaging all that much is not playing the leadership role that it typically would have and some comments to the effect of, you know, the president of Donald Trump is not really taking the rest of the work,

the impact on the rest of the world into account. So I do think there's some frustration there. I think that we saw a Secretary Scott Beson, the Treasury Secretary attending these one-on-one meetings, but not really leading these looking

to form some kind of consensus or understanding about where this is all headed. So I'm not sure that that's a huge change. It's a change perhaps at the IMF on World Bank forums, but kind of fits with what we've been seeing,

with just freight, freight relations with allies and in other countries around the world. - We would all like some clarity on where this is how I'm going. Kate there, it's an emblemurge.

I just want to sit at the New York Times on a Friday afternoon. Thanks you, too. - Thanks, okay. - Have a nice weekend.

On Wall Street today, we talked about it just a little bit. Kate did, there was some exuberance in the capital and commodities markets today. I will let you decide whether it was irrational or not. Yes, that was an Ellen Greenspan joke.

Details numbers, when we get there. (upbeat music) Here is a story about old media, social media, and the shopping habits of the mighty American consumer. After 40 some odd years of broadcasting retail commerce,

straight into people's living rooms,

The owner of HSN once upon a time called the Home Shopping Network

“says it is going to keep operating while it's in bankruptcy”

court and that it hopes to get out of bankruptcy protection soon. The plan seems to be to use the time to go all in on live social shopping near real-time retail on social media and streaming and e-commerce sites.

Marketplaces, Chris and Schwab has more. QVC is sort of the original player in real-time retail. And it's still selling. Here's one segment from its broadcast today. - Ooh, we have another brand new company.

- Day. - Oh, crystal. - Oh my gosh. - Crystal is posing in a staged living room, wearing a bright yellow track suit.

And the content isn't so different from what you might find on TikTok, the leading social shopping destination by sales. Kim Kardashian was on the platform selling her skims brand back in December.

At its peak, 30,000 people tuned in. - Did you guys notice my outfit change? - Yes. - It's like, look, look at the back. - Oh my gosh.

- On the TikTok shop.

“- Live social shopping is kind of like QVC on steroids.”

Sky canavis, a retail and e-commerce analyst at e-marketer, says sales flash on the screen, brands drop limited edition merchandise. It tends to be very interactive because the audience can ask questions, make requests.

And they tend to be elements of foam to it. - It's a bit more in the moment. And there's less friction to buy. Shoppers can click on links in TikTok and check out directly on the platform.

And people are engaged.

Canavis expects TikTok shop sales to hit $23 billion in $20.26.

- This year TikTok shop will actually generate more online sales than target. - A pretty impressive stat, considering the shopping feature was only introduced on TikTok a couple years ago.

Katie Hansen, a retail and e-commerce analyst at Mintel, says the products that sell best on social tend to be more affordable goods. - What I would call low risk products. So you know, maybe a piece of clothing

or maybe even like food and drink something that you're kind of doing one off. And it doesn't require as much investment. - But in general, Hansen doesn't expect social shopping to dominate retail the way it does in Asia.

Social commerce in the US is more about discovering new products and brands. - It's part of the overall strategy. So it's all working together as this seamless, omnichannel way that consumers are shopping.

- On social media, online through a website and in person, I'm Kristen Schwab for Marketplace. (upbeat music) - Coming up. - This is a very hip area, that's the where it was.

- Yeah, you can kind of tell. - Very hip. - Hip and high tech in Ho Chi Minh City,

but first, let's do the numbers.

Now in dust rolls up, 868, today 180, 10%, 49,447, and as that gained 365 points, one and a half percent, 24,468, the S&P 500 rows, 84 points, 1.2%, 71 and 26.

For the five days gone by the doubt of 3.2%, today as that bounded up, 6.8%, S&P 500 added about four and a half percent. With ceasefires and truces and whatnot appearing to a hold,

for now is the important qualifier. The price of brand crude down 9%, that a $90 barrel that is still 20 more than before the award, WTI West Texas Intermediate closed at 82 bucks for one barrel.

How many gallons in a barrel, by the way? 42, in case you were curious. - Body prices rose yield on the 10 year T note, fell 4.24% your listening to Marketplace. - Programming is supported by stole Reeves,

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Neil Richardson and I are wrapping up our reporting today from Vietnam, it's for our series, The Age of Work. By way of Quick reminder, Vietnam's got about two working age adults for every person there who's under 15 or older than 65.

A demographic sweet spot, Neil calls it, a young, increasingly tech savvy labor force, that can pay huge economic dividends for Vietnam and for companies doing business there, which is in a roundabout kind of way,

how we wound up talking to this guy. - So I'm a country director for a tiny fish? - We've worked for a company called Tiny Fish AI. I talked to the CEO of Tiny Fish in their offices in Silicon Valley a couple of months ago.

It's one of thousands of AI startups that are competing for highly skilled software engineers right now. At last year, they opened an office here. - This is our goal office space.

- It can't work in space. - Yeah, we work it. All right, okay. Quick was born and raised in Ho Chi Minh City, but spent 24 years living in the United States

to got a PhD in computing and worked as a professor in New York City.

- And then I won't always wanted to come back home,

but I was also a skeptical about the opportunity here in the city. And then I spent one year's of sabbatical here and that reached my mind. - What did you see here three years ago

“that made you up for your whole life and come back here?”

- Of course, my parents are still here. - Yes, of course. - That's exactly right. - But the thing is that I see now more, we're not just adopting technologies,

but we also try to build it as well. So a lot of companies come to Vietnam, not to outsource the labor, but actually to try to develop the core infrastructure and co-technology in AI.

- We was the first hire that Tiny Fish made in Vietnam and now he's building a team here. - When I look around in your office here, it looks like any startup office in the Bay Area. - We stepped into a breakout room,

10 or so engineers working on computers. - Hello, guys. - Hello, guys. - Hey, everybody. Sorry about the, can we take two minutes

and just ask a couple of questions? They somewhat reluctantly tore their eyes from their screens.

- For how many of you is this your first job, Raise your hand?

- A couple of hands went up. When you guys think about technology and Vietnam, what do you think of Drew, you're gonna boom her. She's gonna answer this question. - Yeah, I think we are good.

Because we have some big technology coming in here, we apply AI in many fields. And currently I'm working in the AI too, yeah. - Tell me what you're working on today, what are you doing?

- I think it's secret. (laughing) - Believe me when I tell you, I won't understand what I'm looking at. I did not.

“- Can you walk into any tech company in name your price?”

Or is it very competitive to get a job in the city in tech? - I think it depends on it's individual, but I think everyone's sitting here is very competitive in this city. - Yeah.

- So it depends on your skill set. - Yes. - And my sets, that's well. How many people are from Vietnam? Raise your hand.

You're the ally, where are you from? - Yeah, they don't look like one, right? - You know, you sound, I don't know where you're from. - I came here from UK, originally I'm Russian, but I live in London.

- So you're visiting, where are you from? - This is my business in trip. - Okay. - Roll with me on this one. You're a guy originally from Russia, living in the UK,

sitting in Ho Chi Minh City, and talking to an American radio team. - About sort of the global economy. - Is that ever, do I mean, do you think about that at all? - This is my life. - This is tech, right?

- Yeah, this is what we're doing here. - As we talked about yesterday, the Vietnamese government wants companies like tiny fish here. The Ministry of Planning and Investment

has set a goal of making Vietnam a leader in AI research. In video, as an agreement with the government, to build an R&D facility here. There are tax incentives for high tech enterprises, there are investments in infrastructure,

and training programs to nurture young talent, like the people we is trying to hire. - So we have a relationship with a university here.

I hope to see the source from the local talents.

- This is so interesting because we were talking to a guy running a printing company earlier. And he said in essence the same thing about his work force that you are saying, about your work force, what you want to do

is you want to establish a pipeline so that your workers can grow and so that they can go on and have fundamentally, this was unsaid, but better lives. - Yeah, I think I have this similar tech as him too.

So the thing is that now to have the raw talent, something organic growth from the cities is something that we want to be in a long term because that will ensure both the quality as well as that we contribute

to the lack to the country and the city. - We started this series with the idea that having a large population

of working-aged people can make your country richer.

“That's what happened in the United States”

and Europe in the last century. And now it's happening in Vietnam. - Nila and I made one more stop in Ho Chi Minh City. - The only question is, which bus am I going to step in front of?

- This is the bus I'm going to step in front of. - And then a motorbike. - Yep, bigger but move slower. - Exactly. - Crossing the street is a whole thing here. You kind of have to just go.

- How about we walk on the sidewalk? - Well, now that there is the sidewalk. - The Caldian neighborhood is right on the city's brand new metro line. It opened in 2024, part of the government's infrastructure

strategy that I was talking about. - This is a very hip area.

That's the word I was talking about.

- Yeah, you can carry hip. - Good amount of trees and shops where they decidedly international flair. - There's Copenhagen Delights, Oriel Bospoke. - You know?

- Children's luxury, children's club. - As the Vietnamese economy has grown, and become more global, like we saw happening at Tiny Fish, this area has become a destination for expats.

“- You get it, Churos, Argentinian steakhouse, El Goucho?”

- New York Bagel! - And you can tell that the businesses here cater to a more affluent clientele. - Ciao, ciao, gelato. Good gelato, thanks, if they would melt too fast.

Have I mentioned that it was hot? Neil and I stopped the talk in the shade. - Neil Rich, it's in here we are. Hot, sweaty, five words or less. What do you think, I hope you're in city so far?

- It is eager, vibrant, lively, and dealing with the ticking demographic time clock. - All right, we'll get to the ticking time clock in a minute. In the last couple of days, we've talked to a handful of Asian people,

a little bit more, what has struck you? - I think I'm gonna start with the word I didn't use urgency. - Oh yeah, by the way. - You walk, blocks and blocks, and all you see is vendors and commerce.

- The commerce. - And merchants, over and over and over again. And yet, it is a city that knows it has to transition quickly from where its past was in labor, intensive industries to where the globally economy is going.

- You mentioned past, present, and future. So the thing that has struck me this whole week, I was living and working in China 30 years ago. And the parallels between Shanghai and Beijing of 30 years ago, and Ho Chi Minh City of today

are stunning both the physicality, right, of the slowly growing city center with modern glass buildings, to you don't have to get through four out of town in Ho Chi Minh City, and it's very gritty, let's say, right? That's an exact parallel.

In 30 years, we're gonna come back here, and it's gonna look like Shanghai and Beijing. - Is it, is it really because I see something a little bit different? - All right. - We started this conversation about a workforce

that is at its peak in terms of the prime age worker, and every boss that we taught to have, they're all about their talent. - They're all about their people. - That's great, but then here's where the time clock gets in.

- Okay. - Because people are so much a part of this value-ad service-oriented eager workforce, but they are also rapidly going to an aging economy in Vietnam. So there is a window of time where they can tap into this workforce

“right now, that's why everybody's focused on this moment”

to maximize that future. - And in fact, at least one or two of the people we talked through said that, right? We have the moment now. Do you think they can do it?

Do you think they're gonna do it? - Well, that's the thing. If it was only their own talent and their own value-ad, then absolutely, but their market is not Vietnam. Their market is the US, Europe, Japan,

and their supplier by and large is China. So their future depends on the globally economy as much as it depends on the local workforce. - Right. There's another thing that has to be said,

and I don't know if this is gonna hold, in the month it's gonna take this to get on the air,

and geopolitical instability.

So that's not nothing. - It's not nothing, but it's not nothing. We haven't heard before when we talk to US businesses, uncertainty has been the challenge. - Right.

- Well, there's Ho Chi Minh City in a whirlwind. It has to be said. - We're going someplace else, eventually, but we've got on a plane tomorrow. - Yeah.

- We'll see you back.

- I'm ready for a cold drink.

(upbeat music) - Our drink of choice, Vietnamese coffee, you should try it if you get a chance. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

- This final note on the way out the day, I missed this yesterday and all the news about Europe only having six weeks or so of jet fuel left.

“That's what the head of the International Energy Agency said.”

Well, it turns out, and this is very relevant

to our mutual economic interest. He also said today that it's going to take two count 'em two years to recover the energy output from the Persian Gulf that has been lost over the past six weeks.

Our theme music was composed by B.J. Leiterman, our stories from Vietnam were produced by Maria Hahn Horst and Sean McHenry. Dr. John Stadden, Charlton Thorpe, they're all of the engineering.

Marketplace is executive producer in the brains behind our series, "The Age of Work." His Nancy Fargale, Joanne Griffith, is the chief content officer, Neil Scarborough's Vice President and General Manager.

I'm Kai Rizdel, I have yourselves a great weekend

“to everybody we will see back here on Monday, all right?”

(upbeat music) This is APM. - Hey, David Bruncatcho here, I hope you're well and that your passport is up to date because I am hosting a trip to Italy this fall

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