O.co Says Goodbye to Marketplace

Overstock is saying goodbye to third party sellers, on July 21st O.co will shutter its marketplace for good. No more Overstock Auctions, no more Overstock stores, no more individuals selling on Overstock. While the move is likely to go unnoticed by most of the eCommerce small business community of sellers, there are those who will remember that 5 or 6 years ago, Overstock WAS going to be THE eBay Killer.

In the end Overstock was just too late into the market despite the problems that the competitors already had. For most sellers it was easier to put up with eBay's high fees, stupid rules, and lagging prices and falling sell-through rates, than it was to deal with Overstock's obscurity. Despite national advertising campaigns on the internet, TV and print ads, Overstock auctions and multi-seller marketplace failed to catch on with sellers.

News of O.co's marketplace failure made me go back and check on some of the links to third party multi-seller sites on Firemeg.com. Many have closed. Most have either given up, been forced out, or morphed into affiliate sites that though while they end up feeding what they wished to overtake, they now have steady income without all of the hassle of maintaining a network of thousands of individual sellers.