Online Retailer Overstock Preps Content Platform

MIAMI: The online retailer Overstock.com is planning to launch a VOD platform in the middle of this year, CEO Patrick Byrne announced at a press conference at NATPE, with an initial lineup of about 30,000 titles.

The service will launch on a transactional basis. A streaming subscription service is expected to follow in the second half of the year with an initially small lineup of titles, Byrne said.

The site had 267 million unique visitors last year and has enjoyed 12 straight quarters of positive income, Byrne said. "It makes perfect sense for us to get into this business. We have a deep understanding of our customers. We know what they're looking for. We've had relationships with the studios for 10 years. We've sold close to a billion dollars of media over our history. We realized we could leverage what we have already. We will be partnering with a third party who has content rights with all the major studios."

The content platform will be tied to Club O, Overstock's loyalty program that has about 2 million members currently and is expected to hit 10 million by year's end, Byrne said. "The industry wants to see a competitor to Amazon develop like this," Byrne stated. "It behooves the industry to have a second pure-play mass merchant with digital distribution."