I have been buying from Overstock.com now for probably over three years. In fact, most of my personal holiday budget this past year went to Overstock after some extensive comparison shopping and searching (lowest price, fast shipping and reputable merchant).

Not a week goes by without an email from Overstock with new product specials or promotions. Yet I remain subscribed for two reasons: (a) I like their products and prices and (b) overall their emails are clean and relevant (okay, so a third reason may be to simply monitor what this leading online channel is up to).

In fact, I would go so far to call Overstock.com’s emails among the best-in-class. Good layout, call to action, the images are nicely formatted with many of them on a white background, the font is pleasing on the eyes and easy to read, and the discounted price is called out in red (but it doesn’t beat you over the head).

Last week’s email is a great example of leveraging a popular event such as the Super Bowl to highlight a relevant subset of products to customers. Who would not enjoy a big LCD TV to watch the Colts beat the Bears?

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Overstock informed its Overstock Auction merchants that effective today it will eliminate all subscription plans.

We recently informed you that subscription plans 5-10 will expire on December 31, 2006. However, further analysis has convinced us that the problems arising from O-Subscriptions (specifically, high starting prices, and thus, low sell-through rates) are endemic to all subscription plans, and are therefore detrimental both to your business and ours. As a result, we are ending our O-Subscriptions and have removed the sign-up page. Sellers currently subscribing to a plan will be allowed to utilize it through midnight, January 11. Any unused portions of your plan (including all January subscription fees) will be credited back to you.

Kudos to Overstock for continuously tweaking this marketplace to make it work, but the pace of changes is definitely frustrating sellers:

We give up trying to make O auctions work - as the largest seller in our category on eBay, we decided to give you one last try - but the results and your lack of focus makes it a waste of time for us.

In the same email Overstock also announced plans for a “classified ad platform, bid cancellation capability, and the revival of 1-day auctions” no later than March 2007.

Frankly I’m glad they’re going to have the 1 day auctions again, and, the capability to cancel a bid! We’ve all wanted that for a while now. Way far back in the recesses of my old brain, it seems I remember the term “baby-steps”. Overstock is now coming into the ‘toddler’ stage and there will more than likely be trips and stumbles there too. Let’s wait and see.

I bet Overstock Auction’s list of New Years Resolutions is full of additional changes to drive more buyers, sellers and products to this lingering channel (strange that the auction tab on Overstock.com now shows “Merchant Auctions” rather than “Auctions”). Hope it’s going to be a good 2007.

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Overstock launched this past week a car site (cars.overstock.com) with an announcement from CEO Patrick Byrne. Rather than a marketplace for vehicles (eBay Motors), Overstock facilitates an introduction between the dealer (limited to Utah at this time) and the consumer. In that sense it is more of a marketing feature intended to drive buyers to Overstock.com (”hey, let’s buy some automotive accessories to pimp my new ride!”) and generate referral revenue from car dealers.

This site was built in collaboration with local car dealers in Utah. We designed it with the intent of providing both dealers and customers the best online car shopping experience yet. Overstock.com does not directly sell the vehicles listed here. Instead, we are bringing you the best offers from the best dealers located across the United States, in a format that lets you compare cars, contact dealers, and make offers without pressure.

Future plans include a side-by-side vehicle comparison feature and research tools.

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The Wall Street Journal maintains a great blog on holiday sales news that especially during this merry time is an excellent resource for tracking how online retailers are faring. Yesterday it reported on an interesting ForeSee Research study.

Netflix, Amazon.com, LL Bean, and QVC.com ranked best in customer satisfaction during the holiday season, according to ForeSee Results’ Top 40 Online Retail Satisfaction Index. Ranking at the bottom of the index: CompUSA, Costco, and CDW.com. The study found that department stores — including the sites for J.C. Penney, Sears and Target — scored huge improvements, and that in general, most retailers scored higher than last year. Overall, customers were more satisfied with apparel Web sites than with mass merchants or electronics retailers.

Amazon continues to lead the pack of online retailers in customer satisfaction (disregarding Netflix for a moment as more of a service provider then traditional merchant). There is no consolidated list of marketplaces available (eBay is tracked as an internet auction provider) but that is pretty easy to create using published American Customer Satisfaction Index data and the WSJ post:

Marketplaces Customer Satisfaction Ranking (2006 data unless otherwise indicated)

1. Amazon (87 — 2005 score)
2. eBay (81 — 2005 score)
3. Yahoo! (76)
4. uBid (73 — 2005 score)
5. Overstock.com (71)

For good measure I am also including below satisfaction scores for the leading search engines although scores for Microsoft and Yahoo! should be taken with a grain of salt because of their big product portfolio.

1. Google (81)
2. Yahoo! (76)
3. Microsoft (73)
4. Ask.com (71)

The simplified implication for online merchants is of course to take a good look at the top-rated channels as that is where the buyers are flocking.

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Starting today at noon EST, Overstock.com is launching its 12 Days Of Bargains promotion, significantly reducing a top-selling item for the day (not sure it’s valid for 24 hours or only until midnight EST). And they’re kicking it off with what will certainly be one of the hottest DVD’s this holiday season.

Items selected for this event will be among the most wished-for this holiday season, including high-definition televisions, top-of-the-line golf club sets, electric guitars, watches and diamond jewelry. First up, the just- released “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” DVD will go on sale tomorrow at noon for $9.99 — a savings of 67% off the $29.99 list price. Thereafter, one item will be revealed and go on sale each day at 12:00 noon EST through December 16.

Different approach then Amazon’s Customer Vote initiative which gave the blogosphere and deal sites plenty of time to spread the news and drive traffic to the site. On the other hand this approach may send buyers back to the site every day to check for great deals, I certainly will see if there’s something worth picking up.

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