I wonder if IW3 is yet profitable or TJC is supporting it until it breaks even, gets a consumer and customer base, reliable sales and becomes profitable, if not already.
Having said that I was watching things like candles sell out within minutes, so possibly it survives on "pile 'em high and sell it cheap' strategy. (Attributed to John Cohen, Tesco founder apparently).
Although IW not that cheap so taking an increased profit margin too.
The TV overheads must be prohibitive but the web site sells too without needing TV channel.
Yup, it's a VERY profitable business model for TJC.
Old IW was a traditional retail business in the sense that the bulk of its goods were sourced from brands and brand suppliers. That involved buyers, negotiations, sales targets, sometimes 'sale or return' clauses. Brands would approach IW. This is why there was a LOT of repeat business, i.e., new Vax, RugDoctor, Bissel, Tefal devices regularly. IW got a thin slice, but the volumes were massive in the early days so it was profitable. As online shopping became more of a thing, and prices lowered… it became unsustainable without a better strategy. Alas… the rotating influx of new owners didn't have one.
New IW (obviously) uses the more profitable TJC model: source, buy, and sell stock
directly, cut out the middlemen, set the price yourself, make the biggest profit. To help make those profits even bigger, use a skinnier production setup with fewer staff.
Most goods are imported from the far-east, bought incredibly cheaply in bulk (sometimes given TJC's in-house branding, Homesmart, and there are a few others - this why it's easy to find a lot of IW3's "stock" on Temu, AliExpress, or from sellers who do the same thing and sell through Amazon UK, eBay, etc).
Some goods are sourced from clearance stock companies in the UK which is why they're usually one-offs (in the sense that once that Tefal pan set has sold all its stock, they can't go back and "buy in" some more as it was a clearance/old stock lot). Same model a lot of the discount stores use. It's why when Wilkos went to the wall IW3 (along with others) managed to get Wilkos-branded items sold off cheaply in bulk.
A
handful of goods (the watches, and Opatra) are there a bit more like the old model, but with IW3 getting a much bigger cut than IW2 ever did.
So I'd imagine IW3 is doing well for TJC and was worth replacing the
TJC Beauty channel with.