Overstock.com, an online home goods retailer, is on a hot streak. The Utah-based company pulled in $2.5 billion in net revenue over 2020, a 75 percent increase from the year prior
Jonathan Johnson, CEO of Overstock, told Cheddar that the company's success stems from a combination of pandemic-era buying habits and a robust housing market.
"Clearly the COVID and the stay-at-home [orders] has helped us, but going forward we think that home sales are going to continue to be strong," Johnson said.
Home furnishings were 90 percent of Overstock's sales in the fourth quarter, and while the pandemic has contributed to a home improvement boom, the housing market appears set for continued growth. Johnson pointed to macro-trends such as housing starts (new constructions) hitting a 14-year high.
"We see migration around the country," he said. "As people move, that's another chance for home furnishing purchases, and that's really where we've leaned in."
Johnson made the case that home furnishings are where books were two decades ago, that is, in the middle of a dramatic transition away from brick-and-mortar to online retailers.
In addition to these tailwinds, Overstock has invested in operational changes such as improving the accuracy of delivery times.
"We've learned that in home furnishings, accuracy of delivery time is just as important, if not more important, than speed of delivery," he said.
Johnson also noted that Overstock was one of the first companies to accept bitcoin as a form of payment.
"Overstock started accepting bitcoin as a payment method back in January of 2014, so we're in our eighth year now of doing that," he said. "It continues to be a small source of our revenue, but a consistent source of our revenue."
The company immediately converts into cash half of the bitcoins it receives from a transaction, and holds onto the other half, in some cases paying vendors with the cryptocurrency.
More important than bitcoin, he added, are Overstock's investments in blockchain technology. The company has made investments in 18 different companies that are advancing technologies like instant settlement of banks in the stock market, supply-train tracking, and more.
Johnson said he predicts blockchain will be "as revolutionary as the internet was two [or] three decades ago."
