Overstock rebrands as Bed Bath & Beyond: What about the coupons?

Overstock has officially rebranded as Bed Bath & Beyond in the U.S. Bed Bath and Beyond CEO Jonathan Johnson joined Yahoo Finance Live to explain the change. Johnson says Overstock (OSTK) has a "wonderful business model, but a boat anchor of a name," while the opposite is true of Bed Bath & Beyond. By dropping the "boat anchor" from both, Johnson says, from both a customer and supplier perspective, it has been "pretty sleek sailing" so far.

But what about those Bed Bath & Beyond coupons? Well, customers won't be getting physical coupons anymore, but Johnson says, they should download the Bed Bath & Beyond app. The app "will be the way the special promotions will be pushed to them," Johnson says, adding that both the products customers see and the shopping experience will feel "familiar" to customers. However, Johnson also warns that the company's pricing "has always been a little sharper" and that after the initial promotional period, "we probably won't coupon quite as large."

Click here to see the full interview with Bed Bath & Beyond CEO Jonathan Johnson.

Video Transcript

JONATHAN JOHNSON: I always felt like we had a wonderful business model but a boat anchor of a name. Bed Bath & Beyond, great name, outdated, had become a boat anchor of a business model. We dropped the boat anchor from both. We put the two things together. And with both customers and suppliers, it seems to be pretty sleek sailing right now.

BRAD SMITH: Talk to us about that customer experience because a lot of people who had engaged with the previous brand or the previous iteration of Bed Bath & Beyond, they would say, all right, the digital is great, but what about those physical coupons that I used to get?

Those physical coupons, a lot more digital these days now with the transformation. How do you look at the promotional cycles, the customer engagement, where you're going to be able to leverage this name to drive more loyalty even?

JONATHAN JOHNSON: So we have always been a high-level retailer, highly promotional using coupons. We'll continue to do that for the Bed Bath & Beyond legacy customer that love the coupons. What they really need to do is download our new Bed Bath & Beyond app. That will be the way that special promotions will be pushed to them.

We have today as people download that, a 25% coupon. That is a big blue coupon that will be in their app, and so I think it'll feel very familiar, both as the products they see on our site and the shopping experience with great corporate deals.

Now, I will say this-- I will say this, our pricing has always been a little sharper. So we beyond this initial promotional period, we probably want coupon quite as large. But the [? out-of-the-store ?] checkout will be better deals. I think that's what they'll see because our pricing has been so sharp.