Overstock.com Reviews

Cons

It is tough to be noticed if you do not take the initiative to make yourself known to others.

Cons

High turnover rate and the job responsibilities change very frequently, but other than that there are not too many Cons in my opinion.

Cons

We had some recent layoffs and they are a bummer. A few of my friends were affected. It's tough, but it seems that many of the people let go had grown apart from Overstock and it may have been the best thing for all involved. Others were laid off because a huge ramp in hiring and marketing spend did not work out as expected, so the company, unfortunately, had to reset it's bearings.

Beyond that, some employees are bothered by the frequent changes in direction, which is a totally valid concern, but it's been the same at any other company I've worked and it honestly stopped bothering me before I even started at Overstock the first time. I am super-optimistic, however, about the new management as they are moving in the direction of customer and data-driven decision making, which I have come to believe is the best way to build and run a business.

Cons

Favoritism is big here at Overstock. At first you think its all about performance and how well you do your job, but as you get to know people, become familiar with senior leadership, you start to understand that a lot of people are where they are, because who they are friends with (they hand out VP and Director titles like candy). There is a very tight knit group of senior leadership, they all started at Overstock about the same time and are all high up in the company even though you see them wandering around not doing anything (CMO is a very hardworking guy, the rest are "cool guys"). Senior leadership is a joke here. It's hard to get them all on the same page. No one wants to be the guy to have the final say as to what to do for sure. It's a lot of... well I can see both options, so and so what do you think? Senior leadership doesn't have a backbone. Also, they are terrible at planning. They have a "hire now because we need projects done and lay them off later" mentality. Overstock is trying to get acquired so they decide that because of the CEOs poor ability to plan and blow a whole bunch of spend and how that will affect the company, they decide that layoffs need to happen to make it look like they are a smooth, trimmed, operating machine, then try to cover up the layoff reasoning with problems with SEO and Google. I look around the office and see and hear people that got laid off because of "performance issues" but yet I see people still there, higher management, that all they do is wander around the office and chat to people. Good luck challenging the status quo too. You start to even question and challenge upper management, they will either burn you or make your life very difficult. If you want to work for a company that promotes based on your friends, go for it. Overstock SAYS they promote work life balance, value the employee and the little guys, and care and cherish your hard work, but at the end of the day, there is a forever growing gap of upper management and the average worker. As long as Overstock makes money, senior management will continue to treat themselves well with great pay, but will make sure that the little guys and everyone else that made it possible to get where they are, stay well below them in responsibilities, compensation, and the friend circle. Also senior leadership is grossly overpaid. As I have developed friendships, people share what their compensation is (I personally know people in most of these roles, other roles the people I know have told me)

Manager $75- $90k
Senior Manger $85-130k
Director $120-$170k
Senior Director $160-200k
VP $180-$250k
SVP $230-300k
CO $300+k

Cons

Aside from always having to worry about profitability (which is the biggest con), there can be quite a bit of "bus throwing" amongst various teams and certain managers. There are dev teams that feel as if some work is beneath them so they try to pawn it off on other teams with laughable justification. Retail portion of the business was pretty neglected at the point I left.

Cons

STOP THROWING THE BUILDING IN OUR FACES!

This place is a horrible combination of The Hunger Games and Survivor. Recently, another 100+ people were voted off the island. People that had been there 11, 15 and 16 years - so believe me when I say, loyalty means nothing. We were told it was happening this time instead of letting us figure it out as people around us disappeared (novel change) and we were told that, once again, it's to make finances meet. What they don't do, is fire the executives that make the poor financial choices, just those forced to execute them.

We were reminded, again, that a few years back, when we were asked to vote on this beautiful building and we all raised our hands in favor. Let me make one thing perfectly clear - when we all raised our hands, we were all under the impression we'd be in it TOGETHER for years to come. Those that were next to me that raised their hands ARE GONE and we are once again told "the building needs to mean something". Well it does, it means broken lives and people being interviewed for new positions at the same time that you were sacking 100+ people. You read that right.

Speaking of interviews. They will definitely woo you. Packages of swag, tours of the campus, free lunch, they really roll out the red carpet. Enjoy that day, because I promise that's the last time you'll feel that important. Anything after that day is "May the odds be ever in your favor"

Cons

They are in a mood to sell the company, so nobody cares about customer, long term vision, keeping the talent or making sane decisions. A good amount of the recent layoffs were all about favoritism and not about performance. There are so many non talented employees got to keep their job just because they were either not drawing higher salary or stayed under the radar. Good luck to whoever trying to buy this company.

Cons

Management is always changing. For me it has been every 4 months I get a new PM. It is hard to see a pathway of where you want to be.

Cons

Customers were aloud to be abusive on the phone and you just had to deal with it.

Cons

The customer service department in treated horribly. Customers are the reason there’s a business and it the customer service department that has to deal with all the crap yet the employees in that department are treated the worst. There are no added benefits for cs, no greenhouse, no onsite gym or day care. Other departments look down in cs and even go as far to say that cs has benefits above their pay grade. The managers are horrible, also pushing for the sups to be positive and build rapport with the cs rep but they never practice what the preach all screaming about the wrong doings never praising the positive. The right hand never knows what the left hand is doing. One manager tells you one thing and then you get in trouble for not doing the other way. I was even told I would get fired for helping a customer because I wasn’t on that team that does that specific job. The building is in a warehouse in an industrial with no natural light and unless you are a smoker there is nothing to do on your breaks. The smoking area is a cesspool for gossip and can be very detrimental.