BB&B proving to be a good investment for Overstock.com

Salt Lake City-based Overstock.com’s acquisition of the Bed Bath & Beyond in June was apparently a good move, according to Overstock CEO Jonathan Johnson. The company recently made its third quarter performance public.

“Our U.S. business launched successfully on Aug. 1. Consumers are showing that they love the new Bed Bath & Beyond,” said Johnson. “Even in a challenging macro-economic environment, we acquired new customers and re-activated past customers. Our top line performance is improving steadily.”

Johnson said Bed Bath & Beyond has{mprestriction ids="1,3"} experienced year-over-year order growth since the U.S. launch, led by orders from new customers. Over the Labor Day weekend, the first major holiday event under the new ownership, Johnson said, “We were successful in attracting customers to the bedding, bath, and kitchen categories, which recorded strong growth year-over-year in aggregate, for the comparable period.”

“I thank the entire team for its dedication and focus over the last few months as we prepared to revive an iconic consumer brand in the U.S. and Canada,” said Johnson. “I remain optimistic about our future and the opportunity to gain market share under the Bed Bath & Beyond brand.”

Overstock completed the acquisition of the Bed Bath & Beyond brand and other intellectual property on June 28 and launched as bedbathandbeyond.ca in Canada on June 29. That was followed by bedbathandbeyond.com in the U.S. on Aug. 1.

“Results prior to these launch dates reflect the performance of our prior overstock.ca and overstock.com websites,” Johnson said.

According to the company’s third-quarter report, the Bed Bath & Beyond websites has 4.8 million customers as of Sept. 4 with gross profit as percent of revenue reported at about 18 percent.

“Visits to our website have increased and conversion has improved,” continued Johnson. “Our promotional offers and expanded product assortment are resonating with customers, and they love the refreshed mobile app. Since the U.S. launch, sales from the mobile app have outpaced other platforms. We are also seeing strong engagement within our historic customer base and the mix of orders from Welcome Rewards members has increased 500 basis points since the U.S. launch.”{/mprestriction}