Higher expenses cut into Overstock.com Q2 net income

Salt Lake City – A 23% increase in Overstock.com’s sales and marketing expense helped reduce its second quarter fiscal 2014 net income to $1.9 million, down 48% from $3.7 million in the same period a year earlier. Revenue grew 13% to $332.5 million, from $293.2 million.



Patrick M. Byrne, CEO and chairman of Overstock.com, cited increases in technology spending as helping the company to quickly conceive and execute new ideas such as a recently launched consumer credit facility.



“Our increases in technology spending have supported an innovation cycle that has spun up to the point that we can conceive and execute on ideas much faster than at any previous time in our existence,” said Byrne. “Barring exogenous events, I anticipate that our innovative efforts will continue gathering momentum.”



In addition, Overstock announced that a California appeals court has set an Aug. 15, 2014 date to hear oral arguments in its previously dismissed stock manipulation lawsuit against Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. The court will also hear a motion to unseal the evidence that has been jointly filed by The Economist, Rolling Stone, Bloomberg, and The New York Times.