Joseph Segel, the Philadelphia entrepreneur and the founder QVC, died today at age 88, according to Qurate Retail Group, parent of the television home shopping network. No cause of death was given.
Segel, who founded about 20 companies in fields such as publishing, minting, photography, aviation, software, hospitality, and TV broadcasting, is best known for creating The Franklin Mint and QVC, the the third largest e-commerce company in the world, behind only Amazon and Walmart.
After studying HSN, one of the first TV shopping networks, Segel in 1986 decided to elevate the genre by insisting on truth in advertising and accurately describing products rather than simply hyping them. He knew the value of customer service and ingrained in employees the mantra, “Give customers more than they expect.”
Segel, who founded about 20 companies in fields such as publishing, minting, photography, aviation, software, hospitality, and TV broadcasting, is best known for creating The Franklin Mint and QVC, the the third largest e-commerce company in the world, behind only Amazon and Walmart.
After studying HSN, one of the first TV shopping networks, Segel in 1986 decided to elevate the genre by insisting on truth in advertising and accurately describing products rather than simply hyping them. He knew the value of customer service and ingrained in employees the mantra, “Give customers more than they expect.”
Joseph Segel
QVC aired for the first time on Nov. 24, 1986 as a result of partnerships with 58 cable systems in 20 states. The network today reaches 380 million homes worldwide through 15 TV networks, 11 web sites with more than 2.5 billion digital sessions, and interactions with close to 10 million Facebook fans.
Segel retired as QVC chairman in 1993, but continued to serve as an executive consultant to QVC management until 2013. At the time