Articles Directory | Free Articles | New Articles Daily | Infomercial products make their way to retailers’ shelves

In case you haven’t noticed, the television is no longer the only place to order the products you see on late night infomercials. More and more retailers are offering an alternative place to purchase the Topsy Turvey tomato plant, the Snuggie and other popular infomercial products. And, guess what? Sales are surprisingly strong.

Telebrands Corp. is one of the industry’s foremost marketers of consumer products. Using its TeleBrands famous "As Seen On TV" logo, the company is selling a bundle of its blockbuster products including the PedEgg, taking the formally made-for-TV only gadgets, slicers and dicers to the brick and mortars.

The company has sold roughly 35 million of the popular little metal PedEggs, which are used to smooth the heels and other rough edges on your feet, through its infomercials or direct-response TV marketing as it's formally known. And, Telebrands is expected to see sales rise by as much as 30 percent to a record $174 billion by 2014, according to Yoram Wurmser of Direct Marketing Assn.

One reason for the big uptick: Goods touted in infomercials are increasingly moving onto the shelves of big retailers such as CVS, Walmart and Target. In addition to simply enticing TV viewers to pick up the phone and order from a telemarketing center, infomercials are now being strategically employed to build the brand before goods are sold at retailers or online. "They're the movie trailer before the product hits stores," Khubani says.

More than 90 percent of TeleBrands' sales now come from major retailers. Drugstore giant CVS says "As Seen on TV" products constitute one of their largest general merchandise categories, and it displays a new item each month at the end of an aisle—prime retail real estate. Those items had double-digit sales growth in the last three years, according to Erin Pensa, a CVS spokesperson. Target has expanded its assortment of infomercial-hawked products in the last two years and has logged strong growth in the past 18 months, says spokesperson Tara Schlosser.

Allstar Products Group—the maker of the ubiquitous Snuggie, which is essentially a blanket with sleeves, has seen sales move from 50 percent at retail to more than 80 percent in the last three years. Allstar has sold more than 20 million Snuggies, which enjoy a cult-like status.

Traditional advertisers "can't ignore [infomercials] anymore. Before they saw it as carnival-y," says Allstar CEO Scott Boilen. "You can't ignore the Ped Egg, and the Topsy Turvy [Tomato Planter]," which grows tomatoes upside down and has seen sales of more than 10 million.

Big companies are taking notice of this new phenomenon in the as-see-on-TV sector. Tim Hawthorne, founder of Hawthorne Direct, an infomercial ad agency, said he recently helped a Fortune 500 client increase retail sales by 100 percent after an infomercial aired for a 10-year-old product.

Because ad rates for short infomercials are cheap—as little as $40 for a two-minute spot on a small cable station, companies can reap profits by running multiple spots. Infomercial marketers got a boost during the recession as traditional TV advertisers pulled back, leaving some broadcasters with unsold air time. They filled it with bargain-rate infomercials that ran multiple times. The added exposure helped TeleBrands log record 2009 sales. "We just happened to be at the right place at the right time," Khubani says.

Marketers are scrambling for more infomercial products to sell. At buyers’ and inventors’ conventions, Khubani looks for gadgets that solve common problems, sell for between $9.99 and $19.99, and, perhaps most of all, prompt him to ask: "Why didn't I think of that?" He says he can spot a possible product "in about a minute."