Stream K-Dramas at OnDemandKorea

Shopping Channel Host Shares Secrets of Her Success

Im Se-young is one of the frequent faces to appear on a home-shopping channel when flipping through TV channels. Im, who works for CJ O Shopping, made a whopping 361 appearances last year for live shows to sell products, while racking up W230 billion (US$1=W1,022) worth of sales.

Advertisement

Show hosts like Im started to emerge in 1995 when a couple of home-shopping channels first launched in Korea. It is estimated that hundreds of them are working in the field, and some of them became popular enough to have star power on home-shopping channels.

As more and more people engage in shopping through television, the combined sales of these channels jumped to W8.78 trillion in 2013 from just W3.4 billion in 1995, leaving still more room to grow.

Asked to explain her job, Im said the job is "to work to get viewers to open their wallets". "As most shows often do not have a script, presenters must be eloquent and require quick thinking skills while monitoring sales figures in real time to promptly respond to customers", Im added.

Im's interest in the job grew after graduating from university, and with strong confidence that she could make a difference, she started working as a shopping channel host in 2002.

Asked what would be the best quality for the job, she said, "Rather than focusing on appearances or caring too much about how you look on TV, it is important to clearly deliver messages for the products to sell, by telling customers what they want to know and explaining why they should buy".

But she is a quite easy-going person so she doesn't get stressed out easily even when yielding poor sales.

Looking forward to the next few years, Im's focus is on feeling proud and fulfilled thanks to her life on camera. She has also started mentoring younger hosts but doesn't plan to retire anytime soon.

"My goal is to be the longest-serving host in the world", Im said.

❎ Try Ad-free