Can You Trust Online Liquidation Companies?

While searching for wholesale merchandise to buy and resell online, you must have come across online liquidation websites claiming to be the best source for your merchandise. Looking at the prices, you must have also seen that liquidators sell items by the pallet at prices even below wholesale. At first glance, this might sound too good to be true, but if you follow certain steps there is a very big chance you could take your business to a whole new level.

Finding the Right Liquidation Company

The first thing you must check is the reputation of the liquidation company. A reputable liquidation company will have top quality wholesale merchandise on offer, as well as excellent services. Other things you should also check is the history of the company; if it has been around for a while, there is a good reason for that. And the best indicator of a liquidator’s quality are client reviews. This is something you should always look for and read through, because the satisfaction of previous customers suggests that you are likely to be satisfied too.

Finding the right reputable liquidation company will not only solve the trust issue but will also guarantee you are getting the best possible services and top quality products.  

However, keep in mind that the majority of products sold by liquidators are either customer returned products or refurbished merchandise. So, do pay attention to the merchandise condition. You will usually be informed about this in the wholesale pallet manifest provided by all major liquidators. The manifest is the list of items in a wholesale pallet. If the list is incomplete, lacking detail or missing completely, it is better you stay away from that pallet because there is a high risk of ending up with a pallet of broken items and products you will not be able to sell.

Using Product Liquidations to Your Benefit

When you are selling wholesale merchandise online, the goal is to get the items as cheap as possible in order to stay competitive in the market. Online platforms like Amazon or eBay are full of sellers offering items at prices very close to wholesale.  

Liquidation companies offer the lowest starting prices, and you are given a choice to buy instantly or to bid against other buyers. However you chose to buy, you can usually get the items at prices below wholesale. This guarantees you a bigger margin of profit in comparison to the wholesale merchandise you’d buy from a wholesale supplier.  

It has to be noted that the prices are also reduced due to the fact that liquidators in many cases don’t own the merchandise they sell. The merchandise is rather sold directly by retailers or manufacturers looking to free up shelf space for incoming items as quickly as possible. Wholesale suppliers, on the other hand, buy truckloads of merchandise from retailers or manufacturers and resell it with a certain markup.

If you are buying through an online liquidation website, there are more benefits you can enjoy, such as the fact that you are buying from the comfort of your home and you don’t have to spend time and money on gas to go to the site.  

When it comes to delivery, many of the top liquidators have major units spread across the nation, which means you are saving on the delivery costs. Due to the fact that the top liquidation companies have exclusive contracts with top retailers and manufacturers, you will have a continuous supply of items.  

What is the Quality of Returned and Refurbished Items?

The world of online sales has a few flaws. One of them is that buyers can’t test or try an item they purchase online. This results in around 30 percent of products bought online being returned to the seller. Most of the time, these products are returned unopened, but they still can’t be sold as new, and have to be sold as refurbished.  

Even if a product is used, the manufacturers, or even the liquidation companies, will submit the product to a series of strict tests to make sure it is working as when it was new. This is why you are likely to get a warranty of at least 90 days on any product you buy through a liquidation website.  In any case, each liquidator has a grading system by which they evaluate the condition of the merchandise, helping you understand the condition of the products.

To stay on the safe side, doing some research is always a good thing. When it comes to buying wholesale pallets of liquidation merchandise, you must make sure you are buying from a reliable, reputable source. In addition, every reputable liquidation company will provide a manifest for every wholesale pallet on offer. This makes it easier for you to decide which pallet to buy, especially if you are looking at mixed goods which may contain electronics like smartphones, laptops, tablets or other accessories.

It is not unusual for some companies to misrepresent the products they are selling as being of higher quality than they actually are. Some will even list wrong information on the manifests or even omit the manifests completely. For you as a buyer, this is a signal to stay away from these pallets and the suppliers completely.

To help you better understand liquidation companies and to make the best out of dealing with liquidators to stock up your business, do read our Ultimate Guide to Selling on Amazon. Although it focuses on Amazon as a resale platform, the guide will help you on your way to setting up a successful online resale business. Keep in mind that, due to the dynamics of the market and the nature of the business, your first attempt might not come off as you hope, but the business model itself has potential and is a viable option to make money if applied correctly.

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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.