After a surprise shutdown, a popular retailer makes a big return

Names mean something in the retail world.

Even consumers know that the entity using a certain name isn't really the company they remember. That's why Macy's has Toys "R" Us ministores in its department stores. People know that it is not the Toys "R" Us that most adults over a certain age have fond memories of, but they still have nostalgia for the brand.

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In some cases, brand revivals take what people liked most about a company that has gone out of business and bring it back. In other cases, the new owner merely leverages any goodwill left from the old company to sell something new. 

Sharper Image, a once popular retail chain known for selling high-end gadgets, massage chairs, and air purifiers, is now used on novelty products sold at Target. 

Sometimes, however, a company can acquire a deceased brand with the best of intentions. The former Overstock.com, for example, bought the rights to the Bed Bath & Beyond name after the original owner went bankrupt and adopted that identity as its own, shutting down its namesake site.

The company did that because the Overstock name implied that it sold only items that were overstocked. That was never the company's business model and has been a source of trouble that the brand has even made fun of in ads.

Now known as Beyond Inc. as its corporate identity, the company closed its former namesake website, Overstock.com, and redirected customers to Bedbathandbeyond.com. The company embraced the change, but it has backtracked on its decision to close down Overstock.com and has relaunched that retail brand.

Beyond had a plan for both brands

At the time the decision was made to close Overstock.com and send its traffic to Bedbathandbeyond.com, former Beyond CEO Jonathan Johnson explained the move in an interview with NPR.

"Overstock has a great business model with a name that does not reflect its focus on home. Bed Bath & Beyond is a much-loved and well-known consumer brand, which had an outdated business model that needed modernizing," he explained.

The change made sense, but the company quickly outlined plans to bring back a more focused version of Overstock.com that will make its name make more sense.

"Today, we provide a broad selection of on-trend furniture and home furnishing products through a single e-commerce website, Bed Bath & Beyond," Johnson said during the company's third-quarter-earnings call. 

"In due time, we plan to reimagine the Overstock brand with a stand-alone website that offers what the brand originally was: a site selling a broad array of clearance products at remarkable prices." 

Johnson also had made clear that he'd had a broader vision of the company.

"This new corporate identity builds on the value of our iconic consumer brand. It also recognizes our ability to transform into more than just a single-brand e-commerce retailer," he added. "Our goal is over time to transform the company into a house of brands, providing a mix of products and services across categories. Think of this as a bigger, better, bolder Beyond." 

Beyond always intended to bring back its former namesake brand.

Overstock.com has returned

Beyond's new CEO, Dave Nielsen, said during the company's fourth-quarter-earnings call that the company was able to bring back Overstock.com faster than it expected.

"On the third-quarter-earnings call we told you that we would relaunch Overstock in September of 2024. Our team found a way to pull that launch data up significantly, working with my new best friend, Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify. We are planning to relaunch Overstock in roughly five weeks," said on Feb. 27.

The company actually beat that timetable and Overstock.com went live on March 27, a week ahead of the revised schedule.

"This is significant because relaunching it will mean we can immediately begin to build a creative business with the Overstock customer in furniture, area rugs, patio, and outdoor, among other categories," he added.

The returning retailer welcomes visitors to its site with one of Bed Bath & Beyond's trademarks — a 15%-off coupon.

Beyond has not completed its plans for Overstock.com just yet.

"We're also planning to relaunch the jewelry business, which was once a $100-plus million business annually, among other product lines that the Overstock customer was drawn to over the years," Nielsen added.