ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 21, 1996 TAG: 9604190069
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL AND ELLIOTT SMITH STAFF WRITERS
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 22, 1996.
Cable retailer QVC will be in downtown Roanoke on Saturday as part of
a series of live broadcasts from across Virginia. The date was incorrect
in a story in Sunday's Business section.
Early on a Monday morning, everything is calm at Cocoa Mills Chocolate Inc. in Lexington.
Milk and dark chocolate spin slowly in two large melters that will transform 10-pound bricks of chocolate into the smooth, aromatic liquid used for the company's confections. Boxes of chocolate are neatly stacked off to the side. A large tray is lined with all kinds of chocolate pieces the kitchen has made over the past few days. Things are fairly neat and organized. Everyone is clean.
Then, the craziness begins. It happens every day in the kitchen at Cocoa Mills, but recently, things have been ... well, insane.
First, there was Easter, always a hectic season for a candy company. And then there were all the regular customers, and the mail orders, and preparations to open a shop in downtown Roanoke.
And now, to top it all off, Cocoa Mills faces the daunting task of making 1,250 extra boxes of ``Snappers,'' a pecan-chocolate confection it hopes to sell on QVC, the cable television shopping channel.
Owners Bob Aimone and Susan Petriella see their upcoming home-shopping appearance as a chance to boost their business to the next level, albeit with much hard work.
"This is our first chance for real national exposure," Petriella said.
With an estimated audience of 50 million people, home-shopping giant QVC is an ideal place for ambitious small- and medium-sized businesses to get invaluable publicity - and to discover the pitfalls of trying to grow too much, too fast.
The chocolate maker is one of 85 Virginia companies that will be featured this week on QVC's "Quest for America's Best," a showcase of the commonwealth's products. Starting Monday, the network will devote 22 hours of on-location broadcasts to Virginia products. QVC will come to the Roanoke City Market April 28 for its "Taste of Virginia" segment, a three-hour show featuring the best cuisine the state has to offer, including Cocoa Mills' Snappers.
The cable retailer visited all 50 states in 1995 as part of its first yearlong Quest for America's Best. This year, QVC is going back to the top 10 states for another round of broadcasts. Last year's showcase, broadcast from Richmond, featured 20 Virginia products in a three-hour broadcast that sparked more than $1.5 million in sales.
This time through, QVC will spend a whole week in Virginia, including a museum tour in Colonial Williamsburg and a home-style show at a bed-and-breakfast inn in Fredricksburg.
"We had responses from many states, but Virginia was one of the first," said QVC spokeswoman Amy Ferracci. "It was one of our top states last year."
Getting on the show
The auditions QVC conducted in Richmond in early February drew a variety of products: dog booties, vacation packages, appliqued T-shirts.
Jan Tana, owner of Jan Tana Inc., a skin-care company based in Lynchburg, was overwhelmed by the array.
"It makes you think, `What are they looking for?''' she said.
The products on display for the QVC buyers all had made it through an initial application and screening process. But other than that - and the fact that they all were made in Virginia - the items that were singled out to appear on Quest don't seem to have much in common.
Renee Ward, a buyer in QVC's new business development office in Westchester, Pa., said the network doesn't follow any set formula for selecting Quest products.
"We generally were looking for items with mass appeal," she said. The products had to be unusual, she said, and they had to give customers good value for their money. Other than that, the field was wide open.
QVC looked for both large and small companies to showcase this year. The bigger vendors, including Jan Tana, will have a chance to launch new products. She has been in business since 1983, and her name is well respected among American bodybuilders. She also has a thriving international trade. But outside the muscle-and-tan circuit, she's a relative unknown. Her QVC appearance will give her the chance to appeal to a new audience, she said, with a bath kit and tanning products.
"QVC is something I've been wanting to do for a really long time," she said. "We have a lot of high hopes in doing this. If we have to buy more equipment or work more hours, we'll be ready for it." For now, she has to have $15,000 worth of merchandise ready to ship before she makes her QVC appearance.
Vendors smaller and less experienced than Tana see QVC as a ticket to widespread national exposure.
Connie Bundy of Abingdon, owner of Decorator Helpers Inc., decided she wanted to go national when she started her company a year ago.
"I knew that I was going to have to move fast," she said. "I knew that I could be copied by a bigger company, and a bigger company could just put me out of business fast."
She tried out for the Virginia showcase last year with a home care kit, a toolbox filled with smaller-size tools designed especially for women. But the producers told her the kit was priced too high - $55 to $60 - to make it on TV.
This time, she presented a $20 picture-hanging kit - including wire, spackle, hooks, level - and QVC gave her the nod.
She sold just more than $100,000 in 1995, her first year in business. Her plan for this year is to top the $1 million mark.
"It's not such an unreasonable goal to hit," she said.
Decorator Helpers already advertises in several national craft magazines. But selling the kits on QVC will broaden her exposure, she said, without requiring the massive inventory that an ongoing contract with a national retailer such as Wal-Mart Stores would require.
It was challenging enough for her staff of four to prepare the $15,000 worth of kits that QVC requires of its suppliers, she said. They buy the kit components from other manufacturers, but they assemble the boxes by hand.
But she, like Tana, will do whatever it takes to capitalize on the QVC appearance.
"I'll break my neck to do it," she said.
Suppliers chosen by QVC take extraordinary measures to ensure success and repeat performances. Cocoa Mills, for example, has been so busy getting its QVC order ready that its plans to open a shop on Campbell Avenue in downtown Roanoke have been delayed a few weeks, until mid-June.
After all the long hours, Petriella and Aimone said that they hope their QVC experience is not a flash in the pan.
"We certainly hope to be invited back," Petriella said. "We hope it's not one of those one-time things."
A second appearance wouldn't be out of the question. "If a product does extremely well, it would probably appear again on regular QVC," Ferracci said.
It happened to V.W. Joyner and Co. of Smithfield, a vendor that appeared on last year's Quest to sell its country hams. The 10-minute appearance was so successful that QVC invited the company to return not once, but five times, to sell spiral-cut hams prepared specially for the network appearances.
During this year's Quest, Joyner general manager Larry Santure will sell the company's newest product: lower-sodium country ham.
Joyner is by no means a struggling young company. It has the oldest smokehouse in continuous use in the United States, and last year it sold about 2.5 million tons of ham - $5.5 million worth - internationally, through retail stores, a catalog and food service distributors. But much of Joyner's business has been concentrated in the South and Southeast, Santure said. QVC has given it instant national exposure.
"In 10 minutes, we get to educate the whole country about what country ham is," he said.
Gold mine rushes
For the local vendors who are making their QVC debuts this week, the chance to sell their products to the retailer's estimated 50 million viewers is a tremendous business opportunity. They gain national exposure, they sell several thousand dollars worth of their products and, if all goes well, they see continued strong sales even after Quest week has ended.
But all merchants, especially those with little marketing experience, run the risk of overextending themselves, said Joyner's Santure. A QVC appearance may spark so many orders that the company has to rush to keep up and lets quality slide.
Or a vendor may pin all its hopes on what Santure called the QVC "gold mine." A business may gear up for the appearance by manufacturing excess inventory and then, if the product doesn't sell, be left with a warehouse full of products and a long line of suppliers demanding payment.
Additionally, the sales boom created by an appearance on QVC isn't always an accurate indicator of future performance.
"If they get a flood of orders, that doesn't necessarily mean the sales are going to continue," said C. Ray Smith, a professor of business administration at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business. Vendors potentially can move a lot of merchandise very quickly, he said, but the rush may last only a few weeks before sales slow down again. Merchants have to be careful, he said, not to base future growth plans on a false boom.
John Jennings, executive director of the Regional Chamber Small Business Development Center in Roanoke, agrees that there are pitfalls, but said the vendors he has dealt with seem to know what they're doing.
"A savvy business person, whether they're ready or not, would figure out a way to respond," Jennings said.
SOUTHWEST VA. PRODUCTS ON QVC
APRIL 23
7 a.m. to 9 a.m.: Jan Tana Inc., Lynchburg, tanning set, skin care set.
8 p.m. to 10 p.m.: The Uttermost Co., Rocky Mount, gold leaf sunburst mirror; Waterford Furniture, Lynchburg, chippendale cherrywood hall table; Fretwork Shop, Hot Springs, scherenschitte heart print; Decorator Helpers, Abingdon, picture hanging kit.
APRIL 26
7 a.m. to 9 a.m.: The Homestead, Hot Springs, Dining at the Homestead cookbook.
APRIL 27
4 p.m. to 6 p.m.: Cocoa Mills Chocolate Co., Lexington, pecan caramel chocolate snappers.
APRIL 28
5 p.m. to 8 p.m.: Burlington Industries Inc., Glasgow, cotton rug; Bassett-Walker Inc., Martinsville, cotton T-shirts; Lane Co. Inc., Altavista, miniature cedar chests; Tultex, Martinsville, athletic shorts; Bassett Furniture Industries Inc., Bassett, recliner, motion tables, end tables.
LENGTH: Long : 202 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/Staff. Poppet Nelson arrangesby CNBpieces of candy in a display case at the Cocoa Mills shop in
Lexington. 2. Janet Rabon (below) packages some of the 1,250 boxes
of Snappers that will be sold on QVC. 3. Co-owners Susan Petriella
(left) and Bob Aimone work with Helen Hartt to make Snappers in the
kitchen of the Cocoa Mills Chocolate store in Lexington. color.