"A few months ago, when millions of people were still in lockdown and mostly confined to their homes, the team at Hearst UK noticed the peculiar purchase of a £4,000 ($5,282) Positano lace dress through one of its magazine titles.
“That’s high-ticket, that was a surprise,” said Hearst UK chief commercial officer Jane Wolfson. “Where are you going to wear that dress during lockdown?”
Such has been the erratic shopping behavior characterizing the last five months for so many publishers, who have had to swiftly adapt to peoples’ buying whims, weather commission rates dropping to zero and contend with merchants dropping out of programs for stock and supply-chain issues.
Despite this, e-commerce has been one of the bright spots for publishers’ stretched and strained ad revenue lines. Hearst saw e-commerce revenue grow 322% during the second quarter compared with the same period the year before. While the company wouldn’t say how much revenue that equals or what base the growth was from, that lift had to take some of the sting out of cratering ad sales figures. Still, with forecasting largely out of the window, predicting how long the ride will last is anyone’s guess.
Now into the third quarter, Hearst UK is seeing normality return to some e-commerce categories: Health and fitness is stabilizing, home and garden categories are still high as people settle into the reality of spending more time at home.
“The biggest drop in sales are for things like face masks,” said Betsy Fast, chief content development officer at Hearst UK. “So many of our sites were winning on face masks since it’s something everyone needs. Now that’s leveling off and we’re finding other ways to provide recommendations, whether it’s specialized light-weight masks or exercise-ready masks.”
According to affiliate network Skimlinks, the trend for face-mask content is booming. Variations include face masks for kids, face masks for bridal parties, or face-mask cases and skincare to combat bad skin from wearing face masks. ..."
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