7 Reasons Your Ecommerce Business Can Benefit from Liquidations

Ecommerce is a great industry to be involved with. Whether you operate an existing brick and mortar store or are setting up a new business, the internet is the way to go. Not only does it dramatically open up your potential range of customers, but also reduces your overheads, compared with physically trading person to person, and the shopfront to support this.

If you’re involved in ecommerce, there’s good news. The segment has seen massive growth in recent years, and that trend is only expected to continue. According to the National Retail Federation, ecommerce is expected to pass $600 billion in sales by 2020.

That prediction is supported by some pretty surprising stats. BigCommerce points out that over 51% of Americans actually prefer to shop online. Almost 100% of Americans have made at least one online purchase before. Moreover, ecommerce growth has been sustained at 23% year over year, with online orders increasing almost 9% in volume in the last quarter of 2016 alone.

However, that doesn’t mean that ecommerce companies are without challenges. For instance, while sales volume for the last quarter of 2016 might have risen by almost 9%, the average value of each sale only increased by 0.2%. That means consumers are shopping more online, but they’re paying much more attention to price.

The good news is that liquidation auctions can provide your ecommerce business with some significant benefits. Let’s look at some of the ways.

Capitalize on Low-Cost Products

Consumers are savvier than ever and are looking for more and more ways to save money while shopping online. For most conventional retailers, that means taking a deep cut on profit in order to offer low overall prices. By purchasing your merchandise through liquidation auctions, you’re able to buy at a much lower price than if you worked with a regular distributor, and you can then pass those savings along to your customers without taking a huge hit to your bottom line.

Save Money Buying Liquidated Products

Even if you’re not feeling any financial pressure to cut the prices of the products you sell, you’ll find that liquidation auctions offer significant benefits just in price alone. You can find high-demand products ranging from consumer consumer electronics to sporting goods and everything in between for far less than what you’d pay a distributor. If there’s no particular need for you to reduce your price to customers, you can use that savings to fuel the growth of your business, invest in new marketing campaigns and more.

Buy Liquidated Products Online

Online Liquidation auctions give you the ability to avoid the problems inherent with physical auctions. You don’t have to fight the crowd to get a look at the lot up for bidding. You don’t have to travel at all. You save on fuel, food and even lodging that would be required if you had to travel any significant distance. You also don’t have to worry about carrying your purchases back with you – online liquidation auctions can provide shipping options to make everything simpler.

Purchase Items in Different Conditions for Even More Savings

A lot of the benefits surrounding buying from liquidation auctions revolve around savings, and this one is no different. With the right auction platform, not only will you have access to items that are new in box, but you’ll also be able to bid on pallets of reconditioned items. These come at a dramatically lower price, saving you even more money. The can also work in your customers’ favor – many people prefer to purchase refurbished items over new simply because they’re as good as new items, but cost only a fraction of the price.

Buy Products in Bulk

Buying from a distributor often means that you’re locked into buying in bulk. Then, if the product doesn’t sell well, you’re stuck with figuring out a way to offload the unwanted merchandise without devastating your finances. With liquidation auctions, the situation is very different. Rather than buying in massive bulk quantities, you’re generally bidding on pallets of products Sometimes, you can even buy by the case. That saves you time, money and sanity, and it allows you to sell products without the same amount of risk that you would otherwise encounter.

Trial New Merchandise

Interested in selling a particular item but not sure how much demand there is from your customers? This is an important consideration, particularly for newer ecommerce stores interested in expanding their offerings and bringing in new customers. Buying from a distributor isn’t the answer – you’d once again be stuck with large quantities of unmovable merchandise. Buying through liquidation auctions can allow you to trial new products, determine the amount of demand from your audience, and then go from there.

Making Money with Loss Leaders

Ecommerce has become more competitive than ever before. You need new way to entice your audience to do business with you, rather than one of the other sites out there. In order to do this, you need something to use as an incentive – a loss leader. Buying through liquidation auctions can give you access to a wide range of products that can be offered at steep discounts, or even given away to qualifying customers for use as loss leaders, and to help ensure that you’re able to grow your profitability.

As you can see, there is a myriad of reasons that your ecommerce business can benefit from liquidation auctions. However, not all auctions are created equal. You need to ensure that the company you’re working with offers price transparency, and is committed to customer service.

You should also make sure that the auction site features products from a wide range of categories, rather than specializing in only a few, and that you do in fact have access to reconditioned items. Pay attention to where the reconditioning took place, as well. The right auction platform will use their own in-house experts, and offer at least some warranty on the repairs so that you can buy with peace of mind.

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Henley Johnson

Henley currently works as a sales representative for Direct Liquidation, assisting businesses with product sourcing of liquidated merchandise from the largest retailers in the world. Whether you are looking for a pallet or a truckload Henley is here to help you grow your business.

View Henley’s Bio on YouTube.