Overstock's move to beat Wayfair a mistake, CEO Patrick Byrne says
The CEO of online retailer Overstock admitted on Wednesday that its move to beat its biggest competitor was a misstep.
“We've carved out this niche really in furniture… Our competition is really from Wayfair,” he told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday in response to Walmart and Amazon's shipping battle. “It's been a little tough. They've lost $2 billion in the last handful of years. We had a nice profitable business kicking along last year, and then last year, I tried to compete with Wayfair and punch the button and … do a Wayfair. That was a mistake.”
However, according to Byrne the company is now on the mend.
“We’ve came back… We're doing fine. We came off that strategy and went back to our normal money-making strategy and that’s the place we’re going to stay.”
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OSTK | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. |
| W | WAYFAIR INC. | 51.50 | -0.76 | -1.45% |
Byrne, who launched Overstock a decade ago, took the company public in 2002. It also became the first major retailer to allow cryptocurreny as a form of payment.
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When Bartiromo asked about bitcoin’s recent surge, Byrne replied: “Blockchain is here to stay.”
Overstock’s blockchain arm tZero recently secured a $5 million investment from a Chinese investment firm.