buySAFE blog

Holiday Cash for Overstock.com

Christmas came a little early for Overstock.com as it raised $40 million via a stock offering on Friday. It was covered in a variety of places, including Internet Retailer. Click here to see the article. This was a smart move as it will give them significant resources for marketing and investing their technology platform. I know the buySAFE Merchants who sell on Overstock Auctions are hoping that platform gets some additional resources as well.

Overstock Auctions Moves to Simplify the Buyer Experience

For those of you selling or buying on the Overstock Auctions site this holiday season, they’ve made a series of changes to the site with the goal of simplifying, and improving, the buyer shopping experience. For example, they’ve removed the merchant name and feedback score from the search results and eliminated the Trusted Merchant branding, and will instead leverage buySAFE as the primary trust and safety signaling in their auction listings. A highlight from the announcement was “...because buySAFE is becoming known as a brand you can trust in the community, we have decided to discontinue the Overstock.com Trusted Merchant Program.” To see the full announcement, click here.

I believe this is a positive move as it simplifies the messaging in the buyer search process, thus helping both buySAFE Bonded Merchants and non-bonded merchants who sell on the marketplace.  For those who are buySAFE Bonded Merchants, it also more clearly highlights the benefits of becoming bonded, as only Bonded Merchants' listings will show up in the buyer search results on the core Overstock.com site (thus providing your listings with significantly more exposure to buyers). Additionally, buyers will know you are bonded when they see the buySAFE Seal in your item listing.

Going forward, I hope Overstock will continue to make more smart changes to the marketplace that improves the overall buyer experience. Most merchants I know are interested in finding alternatives to eBay, so if Overstock Auctions can bring in the buyers, I know the merchants will be ready, willing and able to provide the product.