Admitting they were a little too hasty in abandoning their overstock.com domain name for o.co, Overstock have now recommenced using their original domain name.

While Overstock is still branding itself as O.CO, "also known as Overstock.com" the .com name is now their primary name.

As part of the rebranding, the company changed the sign on the American football (NFL) stadium to which it owns the naming rights, revamped its website with O.co signage, and began an aggressive run of TV commercials that declared, "Overstock.com is now O.co," Advertising Age noted.

"The online retailer's president, Jonathon Johnson, said it is stepping back from the O.co name 'for now,' though not abandoning it outright. Overstock will still use the O.co name internationally and on mobile efforts, including an iPad app that launches today. And the sign on the 'O.co Coliseum,' the home of the Oakland Raiders and the Oakland Athletics, will stay up."

The company found that a large proportion of online shoppers were going to the "o.com" (a domain name that ICANN has not released) website instead of "o.co".

"We were going too fast and people were confused, which told us we didn't do a good job," Johnson told Advertising Age. "We're still focused on getting to O.co, just at a slower pace. ... We're not flipping back, we're just refocusing."

"However, some industry experts said the back and forth is not only potentially confusing for consumers, but reveals insular thinking at a company that does all its marketing and advertising in-house," Advertising Age reported.

"This is an excellent example of navel-gazing," said Steven Donaldson, principal of Radiant Brands. "There seems to be such an internal focus on decisions and making them from the inside out, they're not asking what if. ... They're out of touch with consumers."

Writing on the Domain Name Strategy blog, Josh Bourne notes that "While some newer ventures opted to go with .CO (perhaps because the .COM version of their name was taken), it's clear from the O.co case that the ccTLD hasn't really caught on to the extent that some believed it would."

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