overstockArt.com, a leading online distributor of high-quality wall art, announces its featured profile on the Entrepreneur Podcast Network. This exclusive interview between Eric Dye, Host and Executive Producer of the broadcast, and David Sasson, President and CEO of overstockArt.com, will be an in-depth conversation about e-commerce, business innovation and customer loyalty. The recorded broadcast will also provide listeners with extensive information about the background and success of overstockArt.com, complemented by Sasson’s interest in the union between technology and a more interactive – and exciting – shopping experience.

Sasson has considerable expertise in this field, having been a speaker at the annual Mobile Marketing & Commerce Forum, alongside executives from companies such as Buy.com, Dell, Dunkin’ Donuts, Etsy, HSN, InterContinental Hotels Group, Orbitz, Macy’s, PayPal, Rue La La, Sears, ShopNBC.com, Taco Bell, Walgreens and Wine.com, among others. His insight, which also enjoys praise from the editors of Internet Retailer, includes ways to apply new technologies to engage consumers and fuel their passion for art.

“As a global brand that enhances the shopping experience and provides people with a diverse selection of decorative art, I welcome this opportunity to discuss issues at the forefront of commerce and customer loyalty. This broadcast with the Entrepreneur Podcast Network is a showcase of our credibility and international recognition as pure-play retailer that are facing the challenges of building a brand” said Sasson.

overstockArt.com, one of the web’s leading producers of reproduction oil paintings, today announced financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended Dec. 31, 2012.

1. Top-line growth rate for the month of October totaled 81 percent, making it the company’s best sales month.
2. Total revenue growth for the entire fourth quarter was 20 percent year over year.
3. In 2012, overstockArt.com achieved a total revenue growth of 50 percent, making 2012 the company’s most profitable year in history.

Contributing to its fourth quarter financial success was overstockArt.com’s record-breaking December sales with year over year growth of 23 percent. Cyber Monday sales increased 43 percent and order placement increased 30 percent making it the ecommerce site’s largest retail day in history.

According to data published by the Internet tracking firm ComScore, Inc., U.S. retail e-commerce spending for the full year 2012 increased 15 percent from 2011 – the strongest annual growth rate since before the recession. Q4 2012 sales grew 14 percent year-over-year. overstockArt.com’s Q4 increase of 20 percent and annual top-line growth rate of 50 percent are even more notable when comparing them to these industry statistics. These numbers show that not only did overstockArt.com do well above average, but actually more than doubled the industry standard for the year end total revenue increase.

“In 2012 we started seeing some of the growth potential we set in place back in 2011 with the move to a new facility and a series of investments in technology and personnel. Coming into 2011 we felt as if we were set up for growth, but we definitely feel privileged to achieve such a phenomenal burst in sales,” said David Sasson, CEO of overstockArt.com. “Our main accomplishment is that despite the growth, we have not relinquished our commitment to our customer’s wall art happiness and we have maintained a company culture keeping our customer satisfaction as our number one goal.”

In addition to the accomplishments mentioned above, overstockArt.com also achieved the following in 2012:
• Launched a freshly designed e-commerce website at www.overstockArt.com
• Enhanced and released updated version of its innovative overstockArt.com Oil Paintings application
• Optimized the overstockArt.com Oil Paintings application for iPad and Kindle Fire
• overstockArt.com was chosen as the first art vendor to be featured on Google Catalogs
• Signed 500 new artists to Artist Become. Substantially increased the selection of original pieces on display on the online art community with 6,500 new works uploaded in 2012
• Increased its home grown list of customers by 30 percent
• Expanded its social media reach, garnering more than 10,000 Facebook fans and more than 7,500 followers on Twitter

The company received numerous awards and recognitions across the industry in 2012, including:
• Ranked 828 on the 2012 Inc. 500|5000 list of fastest growing companies
• Ranked 820 in Internet Retailer’s 2012 Second 500 Guide and 234 in the merchandising category for housewares and home furnishings

Due to the increasing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers among consumers, overstockArt.com developed an innovative mobile strategy in 2012, allowing the company to maintain its competitive edge and meet customers’ needs. “We aimed to capture the growing tablet shopping audience by optimizing our app for use on iPad and Kindle and enhanced and updated our app for iPhone and Android users,” said Sasson. “In addition to maintaining our mobile app’s relevancy by optimizing it for different mobile platforms, we kept it updated with new products, enhancements and the addition of works of art by our online art community Artist Become.”

“We also sought out new ways to reach our customers on mobile with push notifications and unique promotions,” Sasson continued. “Our customer’s confidence in the quality of our art and satisfaction in shopping with us online and mobile is apparent with our incredible 45 percent returning customer rate.”

In 2013, overstockArt.com plans to continue its commitment to innovation by building on the current mobile applications and investing in more technological innovation to improve the customer experience. The company plans to do a major redesign in the coming months and is in the process of developing a brand new state-of-the-art custom made website.

]]> http://sassoncollection.com/overstockart-com-reports-50-top-line-growth-for-2012/feed/ 0 http://sassoncollection.com/overstockart-com-executives-to-speak-at-the-2013-etail-west-conference/ http://sassoncollection.com/overstockart-com-executives-to-speak-at-the-2013-etail-west-conference/#comments Sat, 23 Feb 2013 13:23:08 +0000 Amitai Sasson http://sassoncollection.com/?p=670




overstockArt.com, one of the web’s leading producers of hand painted reproduction oil paintings, today announced its CEO and President David Sasson and Vice President of Development and Marketing Amitai Sasson will speak at the 2013 eTail West Conference in Palm Desert, Calif. held February 25 – 28. They join an impressive list of the top minds in retail speaking at the event, they will be sharing their success stories along with leaders from companies including Brighton, Cabela’s, Disney Stores, Facebook, FTD.com, Gap, Hallmark, Office Depot, Redbox, REI, Tommy Hilfiger, Twitter, United Airlines, Zappos.com and more.



David and Amitai will participate in the keynote micro-session and group panel “Evolving the Customer Experience, Products and Retail Industry as a Whole Using Cutting-Edge, Transformative Mobile Apps” on Thursday, Feb. 28 at 12:45 p.m. PT. They will be sharing the success and strategy behind their overstockArt.com Oil Paintings app, which features an augmented reality tool that allows customers to virtually decorate their walls with art from their gallery.

“eTail West is a highly respected industry event that is known for bringing first-rate thought leaders, innovators and game changers in the e-commerce and retail space,” said David. “Amitai and I are honored to have this opportunity to add our voices to this dialogue and hope to help brands and retailers find new, unique ways to incorporate emerging technologies in their business plans.”

To learn more about David and Amitai’s speaking engagement at eTail West, checkout Day 3 of the eTail West Agenda.

]]> http://sassoncollection.com/overstockart-com-executives-to-speak-at-the-2013-etail-west-conference/feed/ 0 http://sassoncollection.com/my-2012-black-friday-experience/ http://sassoncollection.com/my-2012-black-friday-experience/#comments Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:52:52 +0000 David Sasson http://sassoncollection.com/?p=529




As online retailers we do not get to see our customers in action. So every year I visit a few stores on Black Friday to observe customer behavior on this crucial day. This year I chose to visit Target and since they opened at 9:00PM on Thanksgiving day it was easy for me to be there when the doors opened.

My story begins as I make the short drive to Target. It is dark outside but from a distance I can see the movement of cars around the block. As I approach it becomes clear that the parking lot is full. This is amazing. I’ve never seen this large parking lot full, and I visit this specific Target often. So I drive past the store and park in a near by parking lot. I get out of my car and head towards the door. When I get to one of the two normal entrances to the store a police officer in uniform tells me that they are only letting people in from the other door and that the line starts behind the store. A line! WOW, I was impressed. I advance towards the line. The amount of people and the energy was staggering. It was cold and some were not so happy about waiting in line, but overall there was a surprisingly cheery mood in the air.

As a matter of fact it reminded me of waiting in line to get in to a hip night club. Only that this night club had a lot more women then men waiting in line, and there was somewhat similar energy and excitement in the crowd waiting in line. As we approached the store I saw the area where people camped out so they can be the first through the doors and “win” the best deals. I don’t know how long they were there prior to the doors opening. But judging by the trash some had their Thanksgiving dinner while they waited.

Once in the store, the energy increased. People were on task. Target built a nice scavenger hunt. There were deals scattered throughout the store. I do not know how good the deals were compared to prices throughout the year, but for the Target shoppers this was exciting.

People were walking from isle to isle looking for the best deals. Shoppers were picking up items not noticing what was the price hoping the person at the cashier will provide a good price for them when they checkout.

Customers were looking based on a list of items they knew were on sale but also the list of gifts they had to buy, hoping to find the right item. They were enjoying the excitement, the deal and the search.

Target did a remarkable job creating the scavenger hunt for people who are searching for gift ideas. The placement of the bargain bins were scattered throughout the stores. Customers searching for something specific had no way of knowing exactly where it was. Also customers looking to see what are the best deals had to search through the store. Wherever I saw the Black Friday bins I also saw a large crowd searching through, finding gifts and treasures.

What was also interesting is that in spite of the amount of people and the commotion of so many people trying to get around in the store, the mood was very positive. People seemed excited to be there and they seemed to be having fun. It is partially due to Target having a full staff and partially because people just celebrated Thanksgiving and were still in a cheerful holiday mood.

My take away as an eCommerce retailer is that when customers are in a buying mode you want them deep in your store. Target didn’t put all of the door busters by the door. As a matter of fact, you did not see any of the door buster bins when you just walked in. They took the customers on a trip or a stroll to find the deals they wanted. Target created a shopping experience that was fun and engaging. Customers got deals, found gifts, and were able to a good portion of their shopping done early in the season. This positive connection goes a long way for the chain as far as future holiday and non-holiday shopping goes.

It is harder to take people through a virtual tour since customers online are in a greater hurry. It is the nature of the medium. But if we can involve our customers emotionally and draw them in to the “scavenger” hunt. Looking, browsing, exploring and finding could be the result. And it is not always the items that are on sale. Using simple cross-sell features we can draw customers in with the promises of great prices but also show them full price merchandise.

The other take away is that Black Friday keeps getting longer. This year Black Friday started at 8:00 pm on Thursday, which means it was a 28 hours day. I do not know the official results, but this feels like the right move for retailers. By starting the Black Friday sales at a reasonable time all or at least many more customers can take part in the exciting opening of the holiday shopping season. Also it seems that for people across the US the Thanksgiving celebration ends on Thursday evening and this provides consumers who have been cooped up at home all day an opportunity to brave the cold and do something different.

For an online retailer, this is a good opportunity as well. We do not have the negative implications of making employees have to work during their holiday get together. But if we schedule the promotions we are bound to start our Black Friday early. The big box retailers do the heavy lifting of legitimizing shopping for Black Friday on Thanksgiving day and if we send our promotions on time we can benefit as well.

As the holiday shopping started I wish all retailers fun and success in the coming crucial weeks.

]]> http://sassoncollection.com/my-2012-black-friday-experience/feed/ 0 http://sassoncollection.com/why-is-adding-a-new-market-or-a-new-business-model-so-hard/ http://sassoncollection.com/why-is-adding-a-new-market-or-a-new-business-model-so-hard/#comments Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:46:03 +0000 David Sasson http://sassoncollection.com/?p=519





In our business we run two or three business models which require many differences of approach and definitely bump into each other from time to time. When working on our plans for 2013 I was considering the different business models and it occurred to me that many companies have a very hard time introducing new models and perusing new opportunities. So in this short article I would like to set the foundation of how to establish a new business model and explore the inherent difficulties of operating multiple models.

First, I believe that when introducing a new model or going after a new market, which in many cases requires change in our model, there are two major pitfalls that cause failure. The first is expectations. This is ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ syndrome. Initially looking at the new opportunity we are blind, to a large degree, by the amazing opportunity we perceive. The opportunity after all is what causes us to enter the new market or add the new product segment. Then reality sets and the difficulties we did not consider arrive. This is inevitable. But there are remedies.

The second reason for failure is that a new business model is going to create challenge in ways we did not anticipate. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the new model is not producing a significant enough portion of our revenues or profits. As such it becomes a larger problem then it’s worth. Or at least so it seems.

So how can we solve this? First, when approaching a new market or new product segment you need to consider all of the ramifications of the choice. You might just be adding a line but you might be causing a significant change to your operational model or adding a new model or a new complexity to your current business model.

Next, when looking at your opportunity consider your upside, but also consider the level of organizational energy that is going to be required in order to make this a significant part of your business. It should be understood from the get go that the fact that you are not as familiar with this model will make many of your projections and assumptions for growth nothing but an educated guess. This means that lower revenue from this line should not discourage you. As a matter of fact, it will be advantageous to set the projections very low so that even a small amount of revenues is exciting to the people in charge of the new business model or segment. The excitement will drive the needed emotional energy.

Finally, you want to allow ample time for the new market opportunity to produce significant results. This will only happen if you invest the needed resources upfront. In order to accomplish this the vantage point may need to be of a longer term. There needs to be an understating that the payback may take longer, but the long term rewards maybe greater. You should also consider the increase this new model can bring to the value of the company. While this may not make a major impact on revenue a potential buyer or investor may consider this a hidden gem.

This level of analysis may make you walk away from some opportunities. But more importantly it will prepare you to the difficulties of implementing the opportunity. Ideas are a crucial part of the growth chain. But, the failure is usually at the execution level. The understanding of your current business model and the deep understanding of the changes this new venture will require outside of just financial is the crucial link between idea and execution success.

]]> http://sassoncollection.com/why-is-adding-a-new-market-or-a-new-business-model-so-hard/feed/ 0 http://sassoncollection.com/five-tips-to-prepare-e-retailers-for-the-2012-holiday-season/ http://sassoncollection.com/five-tips-to-prepare-e-retailers-for-the-2012-holiday-season/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2012 10:41:44 +0000 David Sasson http://sassoncollection.com/?p=510




With e-retail becoming an increasingly competitive field this is not the time to do business as usual. As you put together your strategic holiday business plan be sure to take complete advantage of the latest consumer behaviors and trends. Having an online presence that’s ready to handle both changing consumer habits and expectations is necessary not just to keep ahead of the competition, but to stay in business.

At overstockArt.com we have successfully used consumer behavior and trend research to adapt our business to better meet our customer’s needs. This proactive approach has provided us with competitive advantages in the field and allowed us to continue to grow aggressively and profitably.

The following list outlines five tips that incorporate consumer trends we recommend e-retailers integrate in their holiday business plans:

• Implementing a mobile strategy is a must. According to an online study commissioned by Local and conducted by the e-tailing group in April, more than one in three shoppers made at least one purchase with their mobile devices during the past six months, and tablet shoppers have an even higher propensity to make a purchase on the device, with one in four having purchased six times or more in the past six months. The trend toward purchasing via mobile means that retailers need to keep their virtual doors open around the clock. And while the technology allows for unprecedented access, the limitations of space on mobile devices requires a simple, user-friendly interface that facilitates shopping. If you don’t have a mobile-optimized site you must create one now in order to stay relevant and be competitive.

  Already have a mobile optimized site? Be certain to update and revamp your mobile site as well as your website towards the holiday so your mobile shoppers will have the same holiday feel on their mobile device as well. Identify and show appreciation for your mobile shoppers by offering mobile-only promotions and discounts.

• Get in the social media game. Far from being a generational fad, social media sites have largely become a new form of popular communication. In addition to sharing personal information, individuals can also share information, links, video and other media that can be directly tied to a business or specific product. It is more important than ever for e-retailers to connect with their initial customers, but also the friends of customers and the friends of friends of customers in this way.

  In the past year a lot has changed on the social media font, it is critical to understand these changes and adapt to them. Facebook has introduced multiple new marketing tools in the past year and marketers must beware that subtle changes behind the scenes mean brands will need to incorporate paid advertising in the mix if they want to get much traction using Facebook’s free services. Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site and unlike Facebook and Twitter with their sponsored and promoted messages, retailers can get their brand and product in front of the social photo-sharing sites ever-expanding base for free.

• Offer free shipping and an extended return policy. Consumers have come to almost expect to receive free shipping, especially during the holiday season. But offering free shipping doesn’t mean you have to do all orders, all shipments at all the times. We recommend starting out early with the free shipping campaign and then tapering it down as the holiday season culminates.

  Be sure to post your shipping cut-off and return policy prominently on your website and mobile site early in the season. Customers want to know that the gift they are buying will be there before the holiday. Customers also want to ensure their gift recipients will be able to return the gifts, so an extended return policy is a good idea.

• Don’t forget the power of well-planned promotions. It may seem like a no-brainer, but many online retailers forget how powerful promotions are during the holiday season. Offer and publicize promotions throughout the entire holiday season, starting in mid-October. The National Retail Federation considers November 1 to be the official start of the holiday shopping season, but remember the early bird gets the worm. Take advantage of beginning your promotions earlier, by doing so you may gain an advantage while people are still deciding what gifts to give this holiday season. Your promotional campaigns should include e-mail promotions to your subscribers, social media promotions and sweepstakes, mobile promotions and sweepstakes, and a schedule of daily deals partnerships with a deal-of-the-day website such as with Groupon.
• Focus on significant holiday dates. Although consumers can shop with e-retailers whenever they want to, they still pay attention to specific dates during the holiday season for shopping. Leverage off of the “buzz” created by popular culture on dates like Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday to attract consumers to your site and brand.

By integrating consumer trends in to holiday business plans all online merchants can capitalize on the season of giving. These are just five of the trends that we feel will help you get a competitive edge. Enjoy the season and happy selling.

]]> http://sassoncollection.com/five-tips-to-prepare-e-retailers-for-the-2012-holiday-season/feed/ 0 http://sassoncollection.com/david-sasson-to-speak-at-the-2012-internet-retailer-mobile-marketing-commerce-forum/ http://sassoncollection.com/david-sasson-to-speak-at-the-2012-internet-retailer-mobile-marketing-commerce-forum/#comments Mon, 01 Oct 2012 15:09:59 +0000 Amitai Sasson http://sassoncollection.com/?p=484




David Sasson, CEO and president of overstockArt.com, will speak at 3:45 p.m. PT on Tuesday, Oct. 9, at Internet Retailer’s 3rd annual Mobile Marketing & Commerce Forum in San Diego, Calif. Sasson is one of 45 leaders in mobile commerce speaking at the event, being held October 8 – 10. He will be sharing his m-commerce success stories along with leaders from companies including Buy.com, Dell, Dunkin Donuts, Etsy, HSN, InterContinental Hotels Group, Orbitz, Macy’s, PayPal, Rue La La, Sears, ShopNBC.com, Taco Bell, Walgreens, Wine.com and more.

Sasson will be featured in the session “Augmented Reality: Making Mobile Shopping More Than Real.” He will be presenting with Stephanie Pertuit, online marketing manager of Blinds.com. Sasson and Pertuit will speak about the technology and management support needed to develop and operate their augmented reality programs and how it lets mobile shoppers do what they previously could do only in a store – and sometimes not even there.

“Augmented reality allows us to have deeper engagement with our customers and makes shopping for art online a more immersive, experiential and shareable experience,” said Sasson. “Our customers no longer have to wonder what our art will look like on their wall, our augmented reality tool answers that question for them.”
Sasson co-founded overstockArt.com with his wife Stacy and Amit Yaari in 2002. In the past decade Sasson has grown the company from its modest start as a small home-based business to one of the web’s most successful online art galleries with more than 20 employees and offices in three continents. He oversaw the launch of the company’s overstockArt.com Oil Paintings app, which features the augmented reality tool “View in a Room,” in June 2011 for iPhone, followed by the release of an Android-compatible version of the app in November 2011 and an iPad-compatible version in April 2012.

The editors of Internet Retailer asked Sasson to present because of his experience at applying leading-edge marketing technologies to acquire and engage consumers for overstockArt.com.

]]> http://sassoncollection.com/david-sasson-to-speak-at-the-2012-internet-retailer-mobile-marketing-commerce-forum/feed/ 0 http://sassoncollection.com/the-fallacy-of-conversion-optimization/ http://sassoncollection.com/the-fallacy-of-conversion-optimization/#comments Thu, 21 Jun 2012 16:22:03 +0000 David Sasson http://sassoncollection.com/?p=424




As e-commerce merchants, there is one key performance indicator that we hold dear to our hearts more than any other: the all allusive “conversion rate.” An increase of 20% in your conversion rate will have a direct affect on your bottom line, and there is no need to increase your marketing budget or overhead. By improving your conversion rate you are growing your business!

Due to this magical KPI, and its direct affect on our bottom line, we’ve all seen a tremendous surge in vendors offering online retailers a service called conversion optimization. The typical offer involves a few versions of a webpage and then conducting a test to see which one performs best. First an analytics code snippet is placed on to track conversions and traffic. Next, the vendor starts making modifications on certain areas of the website and performs multi-variant testing. The typical offer Finally, utilizing the analytics the vendor proves the improvement generated by the process.

For the retailer this sounds very attractive and the return on investment makes it easy to justify the cost. For example, a company with sales of $100,000 per month and a close ratio of 1% can calculate that an improvement of only 10% in its close ratio will increase sales by $10,000 per month with the same investment in every other aspect of the business. Therefore with a cost of only $3,000 to $4,000 this sounds like a great investment. It has a number of attractive features, the first being a quick return. The second, is a very measurable return.

As you are reading this, you are probably thinking, it all sounds good to me where do I sign up. However, I highly advise you to keep reading before making the decision.

There are a number of reasons why in the real world this does not work as nicely as in the sales pitch. First, when the close ratio optimization vendor makes those changes and looks at the results, spikes can happen and will happen out of sheer randomness. This will increase your close ratio for a short period of time and then your website will settle back at its “normal” close ratio. Second, a website close ratio may average 1% (as in the example earlier), but as we all know it is not always 1% which means that a spike of 10% or even 30% is very possible for a short period of time. Finally, as those changes occur on the website other factors contribute, such as traffic sources, selection changes, economic news, seasonality, and many other factors that contribute positively or negatively to the close ratio of your website.

Improving close ratio is important, maybe one of the most important functions of website improvements. However, the way to arrive at this is not through minor changes of moving this button half an inch or changing the shade of green on this button by a small factor. We must think of close ratio not as a selection of numbers but as convincing our visitors to make a purchase.

Therefore, to create true improvements in close ratio we must make true improvements in the customer experience and not minor tweaks.

Some of this work can be done internally in just a few steps:

• Gather customer feedback: A lot could be attained by surveying your customers. Direct your frontline employees to ask customers what they would like to see improved on the website? What can help them become loyal fans? Hold weekly meeting and raise ideas amongst your team members and choose weekly action items to improve your website performance.
• Seek professional advice: Speaking to professional advisors and designers could be great help. You want to make sure that the advisors focus on the customer experience and not on the minor tweeks listed above. Implementing best practices is a great idea.
• Collect analytics data: Use your analytics data to find pages that are underperforming as far as bounce rate and path to conversion. Do a massive overhaul to these constraints in the process. Don’t fear taking chances. in my experience you are more than likely to see improvements.

Take immediate and bold action, look at your analytics, find actionable constraints in your flow, perform gutsy changes. Add features that will improve your customers experience, after all that is the key to improving sales in any field.

]]> http://sassoncollection.com/the-fallacy-of-conversion-optimization/feed/ 0 http://sassoncollection.com/overstockart-com-reports-32-top-line-growth-for-the-full-year-2011/ http://sassoncollection.com/overstockart-com-reports-32-top-line-growth-for-the-full-year-2011/#comments Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:34:15 +0000 Amitai Sasson http://sassoncollection.com/?p=414




overstockArt.com announced financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended Dec. 31, 2011: Top-line growth rate for the month of November totaled 30 percent, making it the company’s best sales month. In addition, total revenue growth for the entire fourth quarter was 43 percent year over year. Overall in 2011, overstockArt.com achieved a total revenue growth of 32%.

Contributing to its fourth quarter financial success was overstockArt.com’s record-breaking Thanksgiving holiday weekend sales. Revenue increased 74 percent, with order placements up by 38 percent, and the company’s single day sales record was broken on Black Friday.

According to data published by the Internet tracking firm ComScore, Inc., U.S. retail ecommerce spending for Q4 2011 was up 14 percent versus a year ago and 13 percent for the entire 2011 year. overstockArt.com’s Q4 increase of 43 percent and annual top-line growth rate of 32 percent are even more notable when comparing them to these industry statistics. These numbers show that not only did overstockArt.com do well above average, but actually more than doubled the industry standard.

“In 2011 we started seeing some of the growth potential we set in place back in 2010 with the move to a new facility and a series of investments in technology and personnel. Coming into 2011 we felt as if we were set up for growth, but we definitely feel privileged to achieve such a phenomenal burst in sales,” said David Sasson, CEO of overstockArt.com. “Our main accomplishment is that despite the growth, we have not relinquished our commitment to our customer’s wall art happiness and we have maintained a company culture keeping our customer satisfaction as our number one goal.”

In addition to the accomplishments mentioned above, overstockArt.com also achieved the following in 2011:

• Expanded its product offerings with the debut of a new line of hand painted and hand carved decorative ceramic tiles
• Collaborated with Bravo, Magical Elves and Pretty Matches Productions to launch a new line of artwork from the cable network’s series “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist”
• Developed and released the overstockArt.com Oil Paintings iPhone application
• Developed and released the overstockArt.com Oil Paintings Android application
• Developed and launched a dedicated mobile shopping site, m.overstockArt.com
• Launched Artist Become (ArtistBe.com), new online community for contemporary artists around the world
• Signed more than 500 artists to its Independent Artist Program: Artist Become
• Developed a new custom framing system for Artist Become
• Commenced its new Commitment to Wall Art Happiness customer service program
• Increased traffic to its website by 25 percent
• Increased its home grown list of customers by 30 percent
• Expanded its social media reach, garnering more than 4,000 Facebook fans and more than 7,500 followers on Twitter

The company received numerous awards and recognitions across the industry in 2011, including:

• Ranked 804th on the 2011 Inc. 500|5000 list of fastest growing companies
• Selected for Internet Retailer’s Hot 100 E-Retailers of 2012 list
• Selected for Internet Retailer’s Second 500 list
• Awarded the STELLAService Seal for excellent customer service

With online shoppers’ expectations rising, overstockArt.com made significant enhancements in 2011 allowing the company to maintain its competitive edge and meet customers’ needs. “We aimed to capture shoppers’ attention through personalization with our iPhone and Android apps, increased ease and access with our mobile website and the expansion of our robust home décor offerings with the launch of new products and a new online art community,” said Sasson.

“We continue to strive to revolutionize the way people buy art online with this dedication to innovation,” Sasson continued. “Our customer’s confidence in the quality of our art and satisfaction in shopping with us is apparent with our incredible 45 percent returning customer rate.”

In its tenth year of business, overstockArt.com plans to continue its commitment to innovation by building on the current mobile applications and investing in more technological innovation to improve the customer experience. The company plans to do a major redesign in the coming months and is in the process of developing a brand new state-of-the-art custom made website.

]]> http://sassoncollection.com/overstockart-com-reports-32-top-line-growth-for-the-full-year-2011/feed/ 0 http://sassoncollection.com/the-money-machine/ http://sassoncollection.com/the-money-machine/#comments Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:57:37 +0000 David Sasson http://sassoncollection.com/?p=405




Earlier this week I visited a friend of mine who is a commercial printer. With all of the new advancements in technology you might imagine that the life of a commercial printer are not simple these days. However, standing there and watching the giant printer spitting out, what seemed like, thousands of catalogs per minute I kept thinking that a business is like a big commercial printer. We have our inputs (paper) then the inputs pass through the machine and the output comes out the other side.



Usually in business, we refer to our output as what we ship out, our finished goods or services. But in this exercise, I like to think of output as cash or money. The purpose of a business, any business is not to generate work but to generate cash.

So my challenge to you, dear readers, and to me is to think about your business as a big commercial printer. What are the inputs, what happens in the middle, what is the rate of output, what is the maintenance or lubrication needed to keep it all going?
Below is a list:

• Inputs: Raw direct goods, labor, other supplies needed, marketing investment, sales
• Maintenance and lube: Administration, operations, accounting, IT and HR
• Output: Cash

The image below is a drawing of basic inputs and operational functions of a business:



It might be that every business can take a drawing similar to this and use the generic place holders in the drawing as operational functions and business inputs. From here you can develop operational directions for actual process improvements.

]]> http://sassoncollection.com/the-money-machine/feed/ 0