Home Shopping Network HSN Transforms Shopping on the Web by Integrating TV Programming

Multichannel retailer HSN sells a wide variety of products, such as jewelry, electronics, housewares, and beauty products, through its live programming on TV and now on its live and on-demand programming online at HSN.com. With the prevalence of broadband, HSN saw an opportunity to deliver its retail programming to customers via its website. As a leader in transactional innovation, the company also wanted to expand its presence to mobile devices, giving customers a consistent HSN shopping experience on any platform. To accomplish these goals, HSN used Microsoft Silverlight, which supports Internet Information Services Smooth Streaming. Integrating its HD TV programming with its e-commerce operation enabled HSN to create the most compelling and convenient shopping experiences for its customers. Customers can watch HSN programming and purchase products all on one screen, live or on demand.

People who watch video programming have an increased propensity to buy. We wanted to provide … an HD, live-TV viewing experience and access to on-demand content with consistent, high-quality delivery across a continuum of devices. Gerard Johnson, Principal of Design and Engineering in the Advanced Services Group, HSN

Business Needs

A pioneer in the electronic retail industry, multichannel retailer HSN got its start in the 1970s by enabling viewers to order products they saw advertised on HSN programming from the comfort of their homes by using their telephones. Thirty-three years later, the success of this format is evident, because HSN’s live television broadcast reaches 94 million homes—24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year—and helps sell 50 million products annually.

HSN’s success doesn’t end with its staggering TV presence; in the late 1990s, the company launched its retail website, HSN.com. Through this medium, customers can purchase products shown from the convenience of their computers. HSN soon saw over 250,000 unique visitors a day.

Regardless of platform, HSN strives to deliver consistent and unparalleled shopping experiences. “Wherever and however our customers engage with us, we want to give them the great experience they have come to expect,” says John McDevitt, Vice President of the Advanced Services Group at HSN. “We want them to tune in and say ‘Wow.’”

HSN knew that improved technology could pave the path to enhanced shopping experiences for customers. For example, by taking advantage of the prevalence of broadband, HSN could deliver rich video content that supports a true, TV-like viewing experience to Internet customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The proliferation of mobile devices also gave HSN a format to deliver this same experience to customers, regardless of their location.

“People who watch video programming have an increased propensity to buy,” explains Gerard Johnson, Principal of Design and Engineering in the Advanced Services Group at HSN. “We wanted to provide not only video content on the web but an HD, live-TV viewing experience and access to on-demand content with consistent, high-quality delivery across a continuum of devices.”

Although HSN has developed a loyal following over the years, customers now have more choices than ever before, and retail competition is fierce. To gain a competitive edge, HSN needed to capture this opportunity quickly while keeping costs low.

To succeed in delivering HSN programming across multiple mediums, HSN took advantage of Microsoft Silverlight—a powerful development platform for creating engaging, interactive user experiences for web, desktop, and mobile applications. Silverlight media-handling features support adaptive streaming technologies, such as Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming, which would prove to be vital to the project’s success.

HSN launched HSN in HD to deliver live and on-demand shopping programs and the “Deal of the Day” to customers through its website. HSN programming is available in high definition (HD), when possible. A team of three developers and one designer successfully completed the project in just two months.

HSN in HD relies on IIS Smooth Streaming technology—an integrated, HTTP-based media delivery platform—to provide optimized HD video and to overcome the challenges presented by customers’ varying Internet connection speeds. IIS Smooth Streaming provides minimal buffering and supports fast start-up times because it adapts the quality of the video stream in real time, based on the customer’s changing bandwidth and computer processing unit (CPU) conditions. “With IIS Smooth Streaming and Silverlight, we get the best of both worlds—a really high-quality video without the stop-and-start buffering,” says McDevitt.

To deliver HSN programming on mobile devices, HSN created a Silverlight-based application for Nokia phones that displays a live image of the on-air product along with a description, pricing information, and purchasing capabilities. In the near future, HSN will also deliver a live video stream. To work on this project, HSN partnered with IT services company HCL. Two developers from HSN created web services to expose its back-end business logic and product information to the mobile application. Three developers and one designer from HCL tied this information into the mobile application and created the user interface (UI). HSN and HCL have tagged a summer 2010 release for the video portion of this application.

The general workflow of the HSN video streams.

Silverlight played a crucial role in the development process. Meenakshi Dhandapani, Delivery Manager for HCL, describes some of the more helpful capabilities: “The MediaElement control of Silverlight seamlessly supports progressive video streaming, and Microsoft Expression Blend made it easy for us to create animations and a rich UI. In addition, by using Silverlight controls, we can automatically adjust how the application appears, based on if the mobile device is in landscape or portrait mode.”

HSN would like to develop a shopping application that includes live video on Windows phones.

By using Silverlight to deliver HSN TV programming in HD quality, HSN has given customers more opportunities to be better informed and purchase products with an unparalleled shopping experience. By integrating TV programming on its website, HSN has found a positive impact on the conversion rates. In addition, the company met its goal to deliver quickly while keeping costs low.

By integrating HSN TV programming in HD quality online and on mobile devices, HSN is able to provide its customers with more ways to search, browse, and shop, providing a consistent, compelling and convenient shopping choice on whatever screen or device they happen to be using. “Having an experience that customers like in an easy-to-consume way on multiple platforms enables us to cast our nets wide and empowers customers to interact with us on their terms,” remarks McDevitt.

When it comes to TV programming, HSN puts infinite effort into producing the best experience it can. The company applied this same dedication when creating the web and mobile viewing experiences and was adamant about delivering high-quality content and streaming regardless of a customer’s connection.

The Silverlight-based player for HSNtv Live in HD and HSN on Demand.

“Silverlight is first-class technology,” enthuses Johnson. “Video delivery is instant; it starts with a 500-kilobyte stream and builds up to HD quality if the customer has enough bandwidth. The experience is just like watching HD TV from home.”

Adding excellent-quality HD video on product detail pages leads to higher conversion rates. McDevitt explains, “People are visual creatures. When someone is considering purchasing a blouse or pair of slacks, we want them to be able to see the fabric and the pattern. By using Silverlight and IIS Smooth Streaming to deliver high-quality HD TV programming to customers’ computer screens, we give them the means to make a well-informed decision and be delighted with the shopping experience and their purchase.”

Live-TV retail is limited to offering one product at a time and 24 hours of programming. If a customer tunes in and does not find the current product interesting, they may tune out or wait until HSN offers a product of interest. Offering on-demand video through its website enables HSN to essentially multiply its “shelf space,” greatly expanding the number of products it can offer at a given time. This provides more choices for customers, who can discover on-demand video of products that match their interests.

HSN can add more relevant content, depending on the needs and interests of its customers. Customers can shop any time at their convenience by watching the HSN programming on demand.

From the start of the project, HSN was under pressure to deliver HSN in HD in a timely manner. Johnson describes the urgency: “In the Internet space, you have a small window of time to develop new experiences, make enhancements, and deliver them to your customers. We needed technology that would support innovation and let us be first-to-market.”

By using Silverlight, HSN experienced a speedy development cycle and completed both phases of the project in just a couple months. The company attributes this quick time-to-market to the minimal learning curve associated with the Microsoft technology.

“Silverlight provides support for Microsoft .NET Framework–compliant programming languages like C#, so it was easy for our team to adopt the technology. Similarly, Expression Blend is user friendly and easy to understand and learn in a short period of time,” says Dhandapani.

In the past, the high cost of video servers could be detrimental to the success of any video-related project. But with Silverlight, HSN was able to get a comprehensive, out-of-the-box media solution at a reasonable price point.

“Compared to other media technologies, Microsoft solutions offer a low cost of entry into the interactive online experience and still provides high-quality video,” sums up Johnson.

• Learn: Silverlight Training Course on Channel 9

• Learn: More about IIS Smooth Streaming

• Download: Silverlight SDK