We are contacted on a daily basis by businesses, small to massive, trying to get rid of their extra inventory. Here’s some tips to help you work with a liquidator:

TIP 1: NEVER SAY “MAKE AN OFFER” - this is a waste of your time and the liquidators. If you ask me to “make an offer” for your 2,000 no-brand / custom brand tank tops, I’m going to say $1 (or less, depending what it is), then you’re going to be offended and reply “OMG! These cost me $12.50! I can’t believe you would offer that!”... how would I know they cost you $12.50?

INSTEAD: Say “I have 2,000 tank tops, photos attached. They are sizes XS, S, XL and XXL. I am asking $12.50 per piece for them. Ships via Freight from Nevada” … then we will reply “No thank you” because that price is obnoxious and leaves no room for us to profit, let alone sell it and ship it to our buyers who also need to profit and ship it. With that being said…

TIP 2: UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE DOING: LIQUIDATING ASSETS IS NOT “WHOLESALE WITH A SMALL DISCOUNT”. If you are genuinely looking to liquidate, it means you plan to TAKE A LOSS on those specific items because you already made your profit off of your full-priced merch. So, if you usually sell the tank tops for $40 and they cost you $12.50, most likely you already ran a sale and sold many more at $30 then some at $20 (Buy 1 Get 1 Free!) followed by some as “Last Chance!” at $15. If you REALLY want to liquidate it, you might ask $4 or so per piece from the Liquidator. (TIP:  Usually liquidating merchandise means you are recuperating 10%-30% of your original cost.  So if your cost is $12, you should be liquidating for $1.20 - $3.60) Your goal here is to free-up a little cash flow because, as previously stated, you already made your money off the 4+ tiers of selling prior to the liquidation. To be totally blunt, you are not supposed to “break even” or “profit” from liquidations… your entire purpose is to get rid of the extra stock so you don’t have to store last years models; you then take that money and reup with current year that you sell at full price. And the liquidators entire purpose is to buy things, in bulk, dirt cheap and resell them very cheap. If you want to get a “wholesale price with a small discount” you are NOT looking to liquidate, so please do not contact a liquidator. You are wasting your time and theirs.  Instead consider sending direct mail or emails to boutiques and offer them the slightly discounted deal. 

TIP 3: TO US, IT’S JUST STUFF. Please do not be offended by this; but I have no regard for the blood, sweat or tears you put into building your brand. Equally, I have no idea how many hours you spent grinding away to make your company great. At the same time, you have no idea how many years I have spent building my business. So, if a Liquidator says your price is too high, it’s not because your hard work is “bad”, it's not because the products are ugly or a joke, it’s simply because, to us, every product in our warehouse is a dollar sign. We do not have emotional attachment to our merchandise. If we feel your price is too high or your items aren’t a good fit for our market; don’t allow your feelings to be hurt! It’s NOT you, it’s just business.  Just because we can't pay $14 for the tank tops, you can always try again when the price drops down to $3. 

TIP 4: IF YOU REALLY WANT TO FIND A BUYER, LOOK AT THEIR SITE FIRST! Today we got an email from someone trying to sell us 10 pallets of Red Bull Energy Drink. We don’t sell drinks, let alone pallets of them. This type of email is exceptionally annoying because it is painfully obvious that the seller spent 0 time attempting to find an actual buyer and instead basically spammed anyone who sells liquidations.  

Most liquidators don't sell "anything and everything".  Most specialize in category.  Our category is authentic designer clothing.  Other liquidators specialize in dollar store merch.  Some specialize in electronics and appliances, etc. So, if you have 10,000 pieces of swimwear to liquidate, for Pete's Sake, find a liquidator who had swim listed. If the liquidators site you are looking at only sells paper products, don’t harass them; you would not appreciate if they added you to their mailing list and started sending you emails about pallets of Kleenex. 

TIP 5: IF WE DON’T REPLY IT’S BECAUSE IT’S NOT A GOOD FIT, NO OFFENSE, IT'S JUST BUSINESS. There’s nothing more annoying than someone trying to liquidate stuff at their wholesale price who keeps emailing over and over and over. As mentioned in #4, if you contact us to offer 10 pallets of Red Bull, we are obviously not going to reply. This doesn’t mean we didn’t get the email… it means we don’t want it, so take us off your list because we never signed up for it in the first place, therefore you are essentially sending spam.   Trust me, if the liquidator doesn't reply, you don't need to keep resending the same email over and over.  

TIP 6: IF NOBODY WANTS YOUR STUFF, THE PRICE IS TOO HIGH. If you make the price low enough someone WILL buy it, I promise!  Your options are:

• Keep sitting on it
• Lower the price!!!!!!!!!! Depending what it is, you absolutely should know that a Dollar Store would buy it at 20-cents a piece. I’m not saying this is what you should sell it for, I’m just giving you a “bottom line”. Almost any liquidator will buy no-brand clothing for $1 per piece. If the merch you have is branded, that can be problematic because companies like ours will not buy it unless you are the actual brand (i.e: if you ARE Adidas, we do buy your liquidations. But if you are Jane Dodo we will NOT buy your $2 Adidas.)
• Throw it on eBay as one large offering or break it down into a couple smaller offerings.  Start the bidding low and see what happens. 
• Give it away as a promotion; for example “Buy a (current stock, full priced item) get a (stuff you don’t want) FREE!!”  Depending how many liquidations you have, giving them away during a promotion may actually generate more money for you than selling them for 20-cents each.
• Donate it for a nice tax write off.  Choose your donation month wisely.  You could donate it before the end of the current-year or right at the beginning of the following year, based on your financial needs.  If your business was super busy this year and you are expecting to owe Uncle Sam a lot of dough, donate that merch right now!  But if this year has been fairly slow, consider making the donation at the beginning of next year.  

TIP 7:  NEVER SEND PHOTOS / INFO WITHOUT PRICES.  Most liquidators are actually small businesses.  We don't have the time or manpower to go back-and-fourth with you to ask for prices.  Just send it all at once.  If we like what we see we will let you know.  

TIP 8:  WE DON'T WANT TO DO EXTRA WORK.  We are not going to have Skype meetings with you, join a mailing list or fill out forms.  Either you want to get rid of it or you don't.  If you want to get rid of it, tell us what you have and the price.  Done.  

TIP 9:  DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PROFIT OFF SHIPPING.  We do this for a living.  We smell BS from a mile away.  We know darn well that it doesn't cost $400 to ship 2,000 lipsticks from Ohio to Michigan.  If you need profit, add it into your Liquidation cost.  If you try to screw us on the backend we will NEVER buy anything from you ever again... and a good liquidator is something you don't want to burn. 

TIP 10:  DON'T RUN US AROUND.  This is a major pet peeve.  If you claim you have it and we agree to buy it, then you won't be able to ship it for 3 weeks... don't waste our time.  If you tell us $4 a piece, don't change it to $4.99 after we agree to buy it.  And if you tell us it's brand new, don't drop "some pieces might actually be damaged" on us after we pay.  This stuff makes us put you on our "blocked list"

TIP 11:  DON'T ADD "FILLER".  If you tell us the pallet is "Mostly womens tees but also contains some other items", do not attempt to pad the pallet with junk you haven't been able to sell.  We don't want nail files in a t-shirt pallet.  Equally, if you're selling 5,000 pieces of "mostly dresses", don't "cut it" with 200 pieces of 2015 Christmas Kids Sweaters.  Come on now. 

INSTEAD:  When you have it and are able to ship fast, tell us EXACTLY what it is upfront, figure out the exact price BEFORE you contact us... then reach out!  There's no reason to lie!  There's liquidators that are happy to buy Christmas Sweaters, nail files or chia pets.

If you follow these 11 tips you will be able to get rid of your excess inventory, find an awesome liquidator and even build a solid relationship where you can dump your leftovers on a regular basis!  Having an amazing liquidator who will offload you of your excess stock is the key to success as an online seller.  Build a strong relationship through honesty and keep that relationship going by sticking to your word.  

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