Overstock CEO has big plans for Bed, Bath & Beyond’s leftovers

Bed Bath & Beyond is back online. 

Overstock.com, which acquired the bankrupt retail chain’s intellectual property assets for $21.5 million, officially relaunched Tuesday as BedBathandBeyond.com in the U.S., reviving what CEO Jonathan Johnson said is still an "iconic, beloved brand." 

According to Johnson, the revamped e-commerce site has 600,000 new products, many of them brand names in the kitchen, bed and bath categories, and they are less expensive than before.

Setting aside Bed, Bath & Beyond's financial troubles, Johnson saw tremendous potential in combining the best parts of the beleaguered company — which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year after numerous failed turnaround plans — and Overstock to create an even better asset-light, e-commerce retailer with an expanded home furnishing and furniture assortment.

Johnson said suppliers are already "banging down the door" to do business with the company. 

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"Bad management sometimes kills businesses but doesn't kill brands," Johnson told FOX Business.

Johnson said Overstock has looked into the company for the past three years and became enamored with its customer base. Not only is the brand "really well-loved" but it is a top five brand in the home space, "much higher than we are," Johnson said. 

The problem is that it had an outdated business model that Johnson said needed modernizing.

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Meanwhile, as Overstock thrived as an asset-light business, it was getting weighed down by its name.

Johnson said customers, and even suppliers, misconstrued them for what the business was two decades ago: a liquidator. As a result, some suppliers would not work with the company and others only opened up part of their catalogs to it. 

Combining the Bed Bath & Beyond name and Overstock's business model fixed both those issues. 

In Canada, where BedBathandBeyond.com launched at the end of June, Johnson said the company has already seen a higher return on ad spend and higher conversion rate on its newly revised site. 

All of its product lines saw increased revenue, but its kitchen, bed and bath products have seen the most increase in sales since relaunching.

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"I think there's a lot of halo effect to this brand that we've seen in Canada," Johnson said. "We expect to see it in the U.S., too." 

The site will remain relatively the same but will be more kitchen, bed and bath-oriented initially "as we try and make it feel familiar to the legacy Bed Bath customer," he said. 

Alongside the vast supply of kitchen, bed and bath-related products, there will also be a growing assortment of furniture and other home product categories including area rugs, lighting, decor and home improvement.

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Johnson said customers should expect better prices than before because they do not have to deal with the costs of big leases or an employee base. 

"That's part of where our business model has worked so well is because we're asset-light," he said. "We figured out how to make money while passing on better deals to the customer." 

Loyal Bed Bath & Beyond customers will not miss a beat, according to Johnson. 

"We love the Bed, Bath & Beyond brand," Johnson said. "Its customers love it. So the way we think… that's what we're becoming."