Overstock looks east with a new warehouse near Cincinnati

Dave Nielsen

Overstock.com Inc. has opened a warehouse near Cincinnati that, on average, will cut by more than two days the time it takes the retailer to ship general merchandise orders to customers on the East Coast, co-president Dave Nielsen says. “It’s all about speed and customer service,” he says. “Whenever you can get closer to the customer and get products more quickly to them, you provide better service and reduce the customer call rate into our contact center.”

The new facility, located in the Cincinnati suburb of Hebron, KY, is relatively small at less than 100,000 square feet and will handle about 500,000 orders per year of general merchandise items that don’t require special processing, Nielsen says. It will also receive merchandise returned by customers.

The Hebron warehouse will initially create 22 jobs, but Overstock expects to have 75 employees there by the end of this year, Nielsen says. Overstock developed the facility with help from UPS Supply Chain Solutions, a logistics services unit of United Parcel Service Inc. UPS Supply Chain Solutions provides the Hebron facility’s warehouse management system, which integrates with Overstock’s order management system to process and fulfill orders.

Overstock’s only other distribution center, which is located near its headquarters in Salt Lake City, has about 800,000 square feet and will still process most of Overstock’s orders. The Salt Lake facility will also exclusively handle all “high-value” merchandise that require special packaging and handling, such as Rolex watches and designer goods like Kate Spade handbags, Nielsen says.

Overstock is No. 27 in the Internet Retailer Top 500. UPS, which has 145 clients listed in the Top 500 and 249 in the Second 500, is ranked No. 1 among shipping carriers in Internet Retailer’s Leading Vendors to the Top 1000 E-Retailers guide.