What is Overstock Inventory?
Overstock inventory are products that are taking up space in your warehouse or in your store. Overstock is also known as surplus inventory, excess inventory, and goes by the term ‘closeout inventory’
Who has overstock inventory?
Any business that sells consumer products at some point in their life has overstock, excess inventory that they need to get rid of. Manufacturers of your everyday products would much rather order inventory that they’re stuck with later on than to not have inventory for potential orders. After the season of product X has come to an end, manufacturers look to bulk inventory buyers, closeout buyers, or liquidation companies to help clean up their warehouses.
How do you liquidate inventory?
There are a couple different ways you can liquidate your surplus, excess inventory. Here are a few options.
- Sell your excess inventory online. There are multiple platforms available for you to recoup your investment. Amazon.com, e-Bay.com, and now wal-mart.com has platforms built that anyone can easily list their products on their website and sell them to general public. It is the long term project and depending on the size of your inventory – you may have to hire someone full-time to handle this task. Certain things you need to know before selling your products online.
- Know what you have available to sell. (Descriptions, colors, size etc.)
- Know how much of each product or SKU you have available to sell.
- Having high resolution images of your products can be very helpful. Each product should have anywhere from 3-8 pictures to give a good idea of what your product is, and what it looks like. A picture says a 1000 words.
- Know that you are not going to recoup your investment right away. Selling online if you have a lot of inventory can be a full-time job. It may not be for everyone but it will help recoup your funds over time.
- Get to know the platforms you wish to sell on. Amazon Sellers have grown in numbers significantly over the past few years. Amazon’s selling platform is one of the most sophisticated ones out there.
- Know that there will be fees involved regardless of whichever platform you wish to sell your products on.
- Sell your inventory to a Closeout Buyer, Wholesale Excess Inventory Buyers, or anyone that is willing to pay you upfront for your liquidation products. This is a short term quick fix to your excess inventory needs. This option will allow you to recoup some of your initial investment but it will get you paid right away or at the most in the next 30 days if you allow net term payment options. It will help clean out your warehouse to make room for new products.
- You could wait out the season and sit on your inventory but try to sell these goods next year around the same time these products are relevant in the market. However, know that is a risky move. The market can be flooded next year by the same product with added new features and benefits and even at a better price for consumers.
Who is the best excess Inventory Buyer in the industry of closeout buyers?.
When you search on the internet for someone to purchase your inventory. Know that there are a lot of options. There are companies that will outbid one another for your inventory – which is good news for you because you can really take advantage of whoever offers you the best price. However, if you overplay that card. You can be sitting on your inventory for longer than planned.
You should know the value of your inventory and know what is the least amount of money you’ll accept for your purchases. From our experience, there are only a few real bulk inventory buyers out there in the liquidation industry. Everyone else seem to really be just brokers or middlemen.
Liquidate Products, LLC is our top choice when it comes to the needs of liquidating wholesale merchandise. They are fair in their evaluation, and above all – they know the importance of keeping your brand alive. With Liquidate Products, LLC – they make it a point to make sure that your product does not go into the liquidation, secondary market and diminish in value.
What is closeout merchandise?
Closeout Merchandise is one in the same as excess inventory. A product such as a headphone can become a part of the world of closeout if the manufacturer decides to upgrade the product’s packaging. The older packaging was good for its time but it’s time to change it up and make it be more appealing to the customers. It can also become a part of the closeouts if there happens to be a cancelled order. A manufacturer makes or brings in product X for a customer and their customer changes their mind about this order and cancels – This manufacturer either now has to find another customer for this or they have to find a solution to at a minimum cover their cost of production.
What is excess Inventory?
Excess stock is left over inventory that is taking up space in your warehouse or factory. An example of excess stock can be – a business like Office Depot goes out of business and the stock that is left in their warehouses that can’t be returned or sold back to the maker of the product gets left behind is called excess stock. Inventory that is sitting around without having a way to distribute it out.
What is obsolete inventory?
Obsolete inventory can be easily summed up by referring it to inventory that is no longer in need or is outdated. Obsolete inventory’s example would be if you as the manufacturer have a speaker in your product line and after some time other similar products with more added features and benefits come into the market at a much discounted price – then your merchandise becomes obsolete in the world of supply chain. Another example of obsolete inventory can be if your product is no longer relevant into the market. Cassette players for example are considered to be obsolete merchandise because the production of cassette tapes is no longer in production. Therefore, if you have a stock of cassette players, you wouldn’t call this inventory excess – the better term to define this inventory would be obsolete.
How do you liquidate a business?
In this day and age, there is a big movement happening within the world of liquidation. There are businesses, big box stores that have been around for a long period of time are closing their doors and liquidating their entire businesses. To liquidate a business is a big task by itself.
When you’re going out of business, chances are there are going to be banks that are going to be involved in this process. They will send over their reps to help close down your store and account for inventory that is left over. These reps are known as asset recovery professionals. Their job is to make sure that the products and inventory that is left behind gets sold for some cash to recover the losses taken by the bank. Their job is to find a Bulk Buyers or excess inventory liquidators to help take the inventory that is left over.
Things you can do to make sure you are ready is knowing what you have available.
Step 1: Create a manifest
Step 2: Before the bank’s asset recovery professionals get involved. Try and find someone to help liquidate this load of products yourself.
Step 3: Search for Excess Inventory Buyers to come in and help liquidate your inventory.