This past weekend, I decided to liquidate some inventory from my full-time reselling business. Liquidating inventory is a very tedious process that relies on good bookkeeping and organization in order to run smoothly. Usually, I will undergo this process 2-3 times per year and I decided that as I am entering a slower summer season, why not work on it now?! Today, I wanted to share with you my process for liquidating inventory in my full-time reselling business.
What Items Should I Liquidate?
When deciding what items to liquidate, I have a few criteria that must be met. [Note: An item needs to meet at least two of these criteria].
1. Item is older than 9 months
[Note: There are some exceptions to this rule especially when it comes to luxury and season specific items. With season specific items, it needs to have been listed for that specific season twice]
2. Item is no longer a trending style
My niche and business model relies on selling modern, trendy items so if the item is no longer trending in the mainstream fashion market, it will more than likely not sell in my closet. This is not something that is applicable for everyone as others who have a specialized niche or market will have items that might not be trending on the mainstream market but will still perform well secondhand.
3. Item is damaged or has multiple flaws
4. Item has not sold after lowering the price 50% or more
I have personally found that if I lower the price of an item by at least 50% and the item does not sell within a few days, then it will more than likely not move at all.
Removing Liquidated Items from My Inventory
After reviewing my criteria for liquidation, I need to put together a list of all of the items that I am looking to liquidate. This past weekend, I removed close to 200 items from my inventory. Before removing all of the items from bins and racks, I made an itemized list in my reselling notebook that included the item’s name and cost of goods. Once all of the items were physically removed from my inventory, I went through my notebook and marked when I removed each item from all reselling platforms. This part of the process is extremely time consuming and requires a lot of patience and organization. After completing this process, I had 6 Ikea bags worth of inventory to remove from plastic bags and sort through.
What Should I Do With My Liquidated Inventory?
When it comes to clearing out my liquidated inventory, I usually will take my items to one of three different places:
Buy-Sell-Trade Stores
This is probably one of the quickest ways to get my money back. Usually, I will make a list of buy-sell-trade stores in my area and research via social media what items they are currently looking to buy in. If this information is not available online, I will call the store and ask. I will then sort through the items that I am liquidating and look for the exact items that they are actively buying in-store. When I go to sell my items at buy-sell-trade stores, I am looking to break even with my cost of goods and not to profit. That being said, if the store offers store credit, I will almost always accept that over cash. The reason being that most of the time, the amount that is offered in store credit is almost always more than the cash amount. As this money is going to be used on buying new inventory (cost of goods), it is a better business decision for me to reinvest the money in this way.
ThredUp
Any items that are not being actively accepted at my local buy-sell-trade stores are packed up and shipped to ThredUp. This is a great option if you are looking to liquidate your items and do minimal work in the process. Under the current system, it is taking about 2 weeks for items to be processed and listed for sale to the site. While the items are being processed, you actually have the ability to go in and adjust prices on your items if you need to. From what I can tell, ThredUp is accepting most of the items that I am sending in. Any items that are not accepted are being donated through ThredUp unless you pay an additional fee to have them sent back to you. I find ThredUp to be another great liquidation option as I am just looking to recoup my cost of goods and not make a profit.
Donations
Any items that are damaged, flawed, or have excessive wear will typically be taken to donation sites along with any men’s items that were not accepted through buy-sell-trade. This is usually my last option when it comes to liquidation as it requires me to absorb my cost of goods.
I hope that you find this post helpful! If you have any questions or just want to chat, please reach out!
If you are interested in checking out other items that I have sourced this year, check out THIS post.
If you don’t already, be sure to check out my Instagram for more Reselling Tips at @ RecycledRosesGuide (Click HERE) and my Facebook page HERE.
You can instantly shop all of my looks by following me on the LIKEtoKNOW.it shopping app HERE.
To get email notifications for my next blog post and to receive my monthly Reseller Recap (with freebies), sign up for my emails below:
Baci,
