What Happens to Wholesale Surplus Goods?

Wholesale surplus goods are merchandise that did not sell in the selling season. Some of these items didn’t even get on the shelves, and others were returned to the seller within the warranty or guarantee period.

It’s a common problem. Most businesses buy more than projected demand, so they don’t run out of stock during the peak season. But, the strategy has unintended consequences. They get to a point where they suffer from overstock or surplus goods.

Older stock must be replaced with newer stock over time. So, where do you put the older stock?

Here’s what happens to wholesale surplus goods when put off the shelves.

You Can Sell Surplus Goods in Online Stores

Store owners remove the older surplus goods from shelves or displays to create room for newer stock. But since you cannot throw good stock out, you sell it on online stores.

Selling online enables you to display your goods to a broader audience, the worldwide market. Hence, this increases the chances of selling your surplus goods.

You Can Sell Wholesale Surplus Goods on Auction Websites

Wholesale surplus goods often go to auction sites like Auctionwin. Online auctions are one of the best ways to sell wholesale surplus goods. You can list your items on popular online auction websites. You have the option of setting up reserve prices or the starting bid.

The beauty of selling your wholesale surplus products in online auctions is that the winning bids can even go above the actual product value.

You can sell or list your items on trusted auction websites like Auctionwin. They connect manufacturers or sellers with potential buyers.

You Can Use Surplus Goods as Promotional Items

Most big or established businesses use this tactic to drive more sales. They use their wholesale surplus goods as a marketing strategy, and at the end of the day, write them off as marketing costs.

You can use low-cost products that are hard to sell to pull in more sales. You can do this by offering them as freebies or incentives. Say, you can give a low-cost product as a freebie for every high-value item bought.

And if your business relies on email lists or sign-ups, you can increase conversion by giving each new subscriber a gift. You can also use them as giveaways or in product bundling. Disposing of old stock in this way increases your customer base, satisfaction, and bottom line.

You Can Remarket or Remerchandise Old Stock

Sometimes, specific items don’t sell because of their poor packaging, branding, and positioning in the store. But if you change your sales strategy, say, package them differently or display them in a place and way that is guaranteed to make people take a second look, customers can buy more of that product.

When you rearrange your store and products, visitors see these products in a new light. These items, say, shirts or dresses, will look fresh. Doing this can pay off as more people notice and buy these surplus items.

You Can Sell Wholesale Surplus Goods at Bulk Discounts

As a seller, you buy wholesale goods at a discount hoping to sell them at a profit. So what happens when you remain with excess inventory?

You encourage your customers to make bulk purchases of these items by offering them bulk discounts—the more units of a particular product the customer buys, the lesser the pay.

Furthermore, bulk discounts encourage buyers to buy on the spur of the moment in order to take advantage of the generous offer. After many discounted purchases, you can find that you have cleared the old stock at the end of the day.

Sell Them in Offer Sales

One effective way of clearing wholesale overstock is by organizing offer sales. You can do this through clearance or flash sales.

You offer great discounts on all your old or surplus stock in clearance sales. And the good thing about this is that you don’t need to advertise or call people to buy your wholesale surplus goods. Instead, you can post a sign outside your store saying “60% off sales”.

This steep discount piques the interest of new and old customers alike, who now have the opportunity to buy goods that they may not have been able to afford before.

You can put a limited time on the excellent discount for the flash sales, say two days. This will make people hurry to take up the offer of buying goods at very low prices. The offer sale period ends with the complete sale of the surplus goods.

Liquidation

Sometimes, despite all your marketing efforts, you still fail to get people to buy your wholesale surplus goods. In this case, there is one other option; liquidation.

You can sell your entire remaining stock to other companies that resell them to their customers. Such businesses specialize in liquidating inventory. They buy all types of surplus stock from you and sell it as their products. An excellent example of these inventory liquidators is online auction sites like Auctionwin.

They buy all the wholesale surplus goods at a bulk discount and sell them as retail goods on their auction sites, thereby making profits from the sales.

Donation

Some businesses get rid of their wholesale surplus goods by donating them. There are many benefits of donating excess inventory. Some of these include income tax deductions (donations are a tax write-off), meeting their corporate social responsibility (give back to the community), creating space for new stock, and doing away with all the technicalities involved in liquidating stock.

You can donate your overstock to non-profits or charities around the country. You can also donate them to schools as educational materials.

Conclusion

Wholesale surplus stock shouldn’t cause you to worry. It shouldn’t affect how you run your business. Instead, you can dispose of it at a profit by selling it on any of the best online auction sites. Click here to sell your surplus stock at the best prices.