We where contacted by Americas Shopping Network (ASN) at a trade show to sell our product on their program. The fee was $19,000 for production costs and we were told that all their profit was generated off a percentage of future sales. They told us that the show did not air in our market and that they could not send us a sample of the show? This should have stopped us then and there but we relied on a relative to tape one of the shows that aired in their market based on the time and channel that ASN provided. The example time slot they suggested had products that were similar to ours and in the same price point and we decided with this information to move forward. During the sales process we were also told that if the product is not selling well that the markets and product line up of our show would be changed to ensure that we had the best chance of achieving a positive outcome.
Once the production process was complete we received a copy of the show, via a friend who lives on a location where the show aired (ASN still did not provide with a copy of our show), and were shocked to find that the products we where grouped with were on average 1/6th the cost of the product we provided and in a completely different market!!!
We contacted ASN the next day to express our concern and where directed to a different representative (appears to be a husband and wife team, the wife provides the pre-sale support and the husband the post-sales). The follow up and support we received was horrible. It would take days for them to follow up if the did and all. When we were able to speak with him he explained that this is the show that we will be on and no changes to location or programming will be made.
Needless to say after our 90 day contract of the show was complete, which we can only assume was aired as advertised (of course we have no way to confirm this), ZERO sales were generated.
We were able to contact another vender on our market place who signed with ASN and had the exact same experience. Zero sales and no post production support.
I can only assume how they are making money but I would speculate that they are either taking part of the production fee or purposely grouping higher end products with less expensive items to promote the sales of the cheaper goods?
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