Overstock.com

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Overstock.com, Inc. is an American Internet retailer headquartered in Midvale, Utah, near Salt Lake City. Patrick M. Byrne founded the company in 1997 and launched the company in May 1999. Overstock.com initially sold exclusively the surplus and returned merchandise in the online e-commerce market, liquidating inventories of at least 18 dot-com companies that failed under- wholesale price. The company continues to sell home decor, furniture, bedding, and many other items selling merchandise, but also selling new merchandise.

In May 2002, Overstock held an IPO for $ 13 per share, and after achieving significant growth and profits in the first few quarters, made a profit of $ 7.7 million in 2009 and reported its first billion dollar year in 2010. The business started rebranding in early 2011, as "O.co", to simplify and unify its international operations but disrupted this effort a few months later, citing the consumer's confusion over the new name.

Video Overstock.com

Business models and management

Parts of Overstock.com merchandise are purchased by or manufactured specifically for the company. Among their products are handmade goods produced for Overstock by workers in developing countries. The Company also manages inventory supplies for other retailers. In addition to direct retail sales, Overstock.com began offering online auctions on its website in 2004, known as Overstock.com Marketplace and then O.co Marketplace. This service has been discontinued in July 2011.

After initially relying solely on word of mouth marketing from customers, the company turned to a special television commercial starring German actress Sabine Ehrenfeld. Then, they will hire another advertising spokesperson.

In July 2006, John J. Byrne, father of Overstock's chief executive, resigned from the board of directors after the public exposure of Byrne's old unhappiness with his son's actions against a naked short sale. In August 2008, Jack Byrne said that after "a lot of early skepticism" he was convinced his son was "right all along" about battles and lawsuits with short-sellers and analysts. In 2010, old Byrne returned to Overstock.com's board of directors.

In early 2007, John A. Fisher and Ray Groves withdrew from Overstock's board of directors for disagreement with the company's main brokerage suit.

On January 2, 2008, Overstock announced that one of the founders of Jason Lindsey had resigned as President, COO, and as Director of Overstock effective from December 31, 2007. Byrne said Lindsey had "played a decisive role getting [Overstock] back on track" after "I messed it up a few years ago". Overstock shares fell to a four-year low following the announcement, which analysts at Broadpoint Capital's investment bank described as "key losses".

In 2011, revenues fell 5 percent during the two-month penalty period imposed by Google. According to the Associated Press, Overstock creates a fake website that links back to its own site. Overstock said it was punished in part because of the practice of pushing university and university websites to post links to Overstock pages so students and faculty could receive a discount. As a result of Google penalties, search results for certain products decrease in Google rankings. During the same year, Overstock.com gained the naming rights to the former Oakland-Alameda Coliseum, changing its name to Overstock.com Coliseum. The Coliseum was later renamed the O.co Coliseum, according to Overstock which was later-rebranding as O.co (in April 2016, the name O.co Coliseum was dropped in favor of the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum).

In 2013, Overstock began promoting increased immigration. President Overstock Jonathan Johnson told the Los Angeles Times that his company has struggled to hire enough computer programmers and software developers to expand the business. "We pay more, and they are still hard to fill," he said. "We should be more free to let people in. It helps us solve our border problems No one goes through the windows if they can ring the doorbell and enter the front door."

In 2014, Overstock began developing software that allowed it to distribute shares of companies online rather than using traditional methods such as the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ.

The Board of Directors of Overstock.com on January 9, 2014, is Patrick Byrne, Jonathan E. Johnson III, Allison H. Abraham, Barclay F. Corbus, Samuel A. Mitchell, Stormy D. Simon, Joseph J. Tabacco, Jr. and Dr. Kirthi Kalyanam

Byrne took unlimited leave in April 2016, due to hepatitis C complications. General advice, Mitch Edwards, was named the acting CEO. In July 2016, Byrne returned as CEO.

Worldstock

In 2001 Overstock founded the Worldstock division, to showcase the work of craftsmen from around the world. In 2006 there were about 6,000 contributing producers.

Bitcoin

On January 9, 2014, Overstock.com became the first major retailer to start receiving bitcoin as payment for its goods. In the first 22 hours, they received over 800 orders worth US $ 126,000 in bitcoin. This represents a 4.33% increase in sales from their normal earnings of $ 3 million per day.

On March 13, 2014, Overstock bitcoin revenues had shrunk to below 1% of their normal daily cash intake.

In a community interview with Reddit social media site on May 3, 2014, in response to a question to Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne about the percentage of revenues and transactions paid in bitcoin, Byrne replied that the percentage was "Tiny. & 1%". In mid-2014 Overstock.com announced that average bitcoin sales were $ 300,000 per month and that the company expects bitcoin sales to add 4 cents to its 2014 earnings per share.

On September 14, 2014, Overstock announced it would start donating 4% of bitcoin revenues to foundations advocating cryptocurrency.

Maps Overstock.com

Naked short sales campaign

The company has received attention that comes from the battle of CEO Patrick Byrne against the alleged short sale of his company's stock. Beginning in 2005, Byrne argues that a number of companies, including Overstock.com, have been subjected to this practice, involving the sale of short stocks but without the usual steps of initially borrowing or seeking stock. Byrne alleges that the practice is evasive from conventional shorting secrets, and has been used in large schemes designed to benefit from lowering the company's stock price, in many cases causing the failure of these companies. With Overstock, Byrne argues that the company's long-standing appearance is on the SHO Threshold Security Rule list, a list of SEC mandates that show companies with high "failed sent" numbers, along with high trading volumes that sometimes surpass the total number of stocks. , specifying that it has been targeted by this practice. Byrne's campaign has become controversial, including critics in the financial press that Byrne is trying to distract from Overstock's stock price drop and failure to make a profit. New York Times columnist Joseph Nocera said in 2006 that, "Except for some websites traveling together, where Mr. Byrne is seen as a heroic figure, most people who understand this problem or have looked into it think it is so unreasonable. "Others say the problem is real, but the SEC acts to prevent it and it does not happen on any scale as Byrne suggests. The SEC chairman, Christopher Cox, called the rough nude sale "a fraud that the commission would have prevented and punished."

Overstock filed a lawsuit against Rocker Partners' hedge fund in 2005, for defamation, unfair business practices and tortured interference, said it was in collusion with research firm Gradient Analytics in the company's short sale while paying for Gradient Analytics to publish a negative report about Overstock.com and provides a pre-published copy to Rocker. Short-bare sales were not expected in the lawsuit. In a conference call with analysts in August 2005, a day after the lawsuit was filed, Byrne said that "there have been plans since we were teenagers to destroy our stock, push it to $ 6-10... and even plan how the company will then be hit. "He said that the conspirators were part of the" Miscreants Ball ", led by" Sith Lord ", whom he refused to identify but said" he was one of the major criminals of the 1980s. " Byrne said the conspiracy included hedge funds, journalists, investigators, court lawyers, the SEC, and Eliot Spitzer. "Gradient Analytics responded, accusing Byrne of having a dirty campaign.

Rocker Partners, renamed Copper River Management, filed a lawsuit against Overstock in November 2007, accusing overstatement of profit, false projections, and misinterpretations about the company's efforts. Copper River also alleges that Byrne tried to silence criticism by suing them. A portion of the lawsuit was settled out of court on October 13, 2008, when Overstock.com and Gradient dropped claims against each other after Gradient retracted allegations that Overstock's reporting method was not in accordance with the rules laid down by the FASB, stating that they believed Overstock.com fulfilled standard of GAAP, and three independent directors by NASD standards, and apologize. Byrne has said apology and settlement "is a big step forward in our case", while Copper River lawyers stated that "If somehow this raises the case of Overstock, then Gradient will admit to doing something wrong and they are not.", And that he expects settlements to help with the Copper River case.

On December 8, 2009, it was announced that Copper River had reached an out-of-court settlement with Overstock. As part of the agreement, Copper River, which closed in December 2008, agreed to pay Overstock $ 5 million. In a letter to shareholders, Patrick Byrne said, "The good guys win." Copper River said in a statement that it continued to deny Overstock allegations. The Copper River General Manager's partner, Marc Cohodes, said, "Although the settlement did not give us the ability to refute Overstock's case and demand our counter-claims, we decided that the litigation fee did not justify missing a practical way to end four and a half years of selfless litigation by Overstock."

In February 2007, Overstock.com launched a $ 3.5 billion lawsuit against Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and other major Wall Street companies, accusing the "massive illegal stock market manipulation schemes" involving short-naked sales. Among his allegations, Overstock stated that since at least January 2005, bare short sales have accounted for most of Overstock's shares, in some cases exceeding 23.4 million total shares outstanding. The lawsuit alleges that this has created "enormous downward pressure" on stock prices over time. Kerry Fields, professor of law and business ethics at the University of Southern California, said, "Byrne might be able to help establish a new law if he handles this right." Fields says, "Byrne's best approach at this time is probably to persuade the SEC, which continues to roam around the problem, or the government to service calls from the courts and let them decide whether or not his company is harmed." John Coffee, director of the Center on Corporate Governance at Columbia University Law School, described it as too ambitious and "very unpromising." Two Overstock.com board members, John Fisher and Ray Groves, resigned over the dispute over the lawsuit.

In December 2010, all but two of the main defendant brokers settled out of court with Overstock for $ 4.4 million. In the same month, the company filed a motion seeking to change its lawsuit against the remaining defendants - Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch - to file a RICO infringement claim. Upgraded claims are based on evidence obtained through the discovery in this case.