The company's bold experiment with calling itself by that single-letter domain name began in June, but ended this month. "We have been listening to our customers and have learned that they we’ve moved too quickly in the transition," Jonathan Johnson, Overstock's president, tells Mashable. Johnson notes that customers continued to call the company "Overstock.com" even after the transition.
"What we learned was that we haven’t yet adequately transferred the decade of brand equity we have in Overstock.com. So, we’re down-shifting the rebranding effort in order to leverage and transfer that brand equity," he says. The company still wants consumers to use O.co as a short cut to reach its site. The Oakland sports stadium Overstock.com sponsors, which was renamed O.co Coliseum in August, will not change its name to "Overstock.com Coliseum," a company rep says.
Overstock is the latest company to find that consumers don't like it when you mess with their beloved brand names. Netflix learned the same lesson in September when it renamed its DVD service Qwikster and then changed the name back a few weeks later after a customer outcry.