Nearing two months on air, Shop 24 Seven, the media commerce venture of the Hinduja Group's convergence arm HTMT and US-based Planet E-Shop, has launched a month-long promotional campaign involving print and outdoor activities to increase awareness about the channel.

Rs 6 million has been budgeted as promotional expenses for the next month which will mostly focus on Mumbai where 65 per cent of actual sales are being recorded, according to an official spokesperson.

The channel, which started beaming on 8 November was earlier being promoted solely on Hinduja group's InCable Net and movie channel CVO.

The official said talks were on with other MSOs to expand the channel's presence beyond the 12 cities where InCable has a presence.

Commenting on the delivery sytem in place, she said all merchandise was located at one warehouse in Mumbai from where it was lifted by Skypak Couriers. While it's still early days the fact that most purchases are being made in Mumbai indicates that warehousing outlets need to introduced be introduced in more cities for the concept to have a broad-based appeal. Delivery time for products in Mumbai takes up to three days while for other places it can take up to eight days, the official admitted. Pagepoint is the call centre that handles calls which currently number 500 to 750 a day.

Queried as to whether any particular time band had been identified where there were maximum purchase orders, she said it was in the 7-10 pm prime time band.

The free to air channel will start selling western products from next year. The spokesperson said that jewelry is the product that is number one in terms of popularity. This is interesting because traditionally jewelry has never been high on a teleshopping product list. Novelties and collectibles are another fast-moving line, she said.

Technical Specifications:
Channel Tuning info: Thai Com 3 at 78.5 Degrees East
Symbol: 13.333Msysm/sec
FEC: 3/4 Vertical
Video PID: 3200

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