Overstock.com Adds B-2-B Site

SALT LAKE CITY — Overstock.com, the online liquidator that sells deeply discounted brand name CE, computers and other consumer products direct, has added a b-to-b sister site aimed at mom-and-pops.

The site is aptly addressed www.overstockb2b.com was launched last month to service the nation's estimated 130,000 single-unit stores, a retail tier that president/CEO Patrick Byrne says is "without access to excess inventory."

"The mom-and-pops are overlooked by jobbers, they're overlooked by big manufacturers and they have to pay full wholesale for this stuff," he told TWICE. To remedy that, he created in Overstock's offshoot what he calls "the first e-jobber," which will provide a sliding scale of price breaks on orders of from one to three case packs.

Unlike other online exchanges that are skewed to larger stores, prices are set by Overstock rather than determined by a bidding or negotiation process. The goods are bought mostly from manufacturers for cash and are shipped directly from Byrne's 330,000 square foot warehouse here that was customized to handle small lots and fragmented supplies. Product is also provided by retail and e-tail partners that handle fulfillment and pay Overstock a 15 percent to 18 percent commission on sales.

So far, b-to-b orders have averaged about $2,000 compared to the typical $116 that consumers spend on the b-to-c site. Byrne foresees Overstockb2b.com surpassing its older $7 million-a-month sibling by the fourth quarter.