Reduce costs and get a bigger business through Raw Returns

In these restless economic times many companies have to deal with profit decline, but this doesn’t have to be the case for your business. All you need is a good wholesale appliances or liquidation stock online platform and refocus your business practices to raw returns offers, one area that companies often overlook.

Raw Returns are goods, mainly clothing, consumer electronics and home appliances, that have been returned to the store they were purchased from. These products have not been checked for flaws or tested for malfunctions. The potential for big profit margins rises even more when purchasing truckloads and pallets of raw returns, at a price much lower than the wholesale rate. The pallets or truckloads are usually a mixed “goodie bag”. For example if you are looking at a raw return pallet of consumer electronics it may contain coffee machines, ironing and DIY gardening tools.

The good news about returns is that they are in-demand products, many of them still in perfect condition, only returned because the color, size, or model were wrong. There are also risks in this situation, such as buying damaged products that can’t be resold. To avoid this kind of stock try to find out all the details about the products’ condition from the wholesaler, or you can even consider visiting their warehouse.


It's best to have more than one source when reselling raw returns goods or liquidation stock. Two of the best places to do that are the mighty eBay.com and wholesale appliances platforms such as liquidation.com, britcomdirect.com and globalstockuk.com. A lot of companies have been doing this with success for years.

Customers return products they've purchased for a variety of reasons and this implies a reduction in the store’s revenues and an increase of costs in the logistical and operational sector. So it is business-wise to handle raw returns as fast as possible since they cannot be re-shelved, and the best way to do that is to sell them to a wholesaler. Or, if you can’t sell them, then at least find a wholesaler that will process your raw returns in an ecological way.


Surprisingly or not, merchandisers do not realize the full potential of buying and reselling raw returns. Buying them can be very profitable for a retail business, since they can be purchased at unbelievably low rates. You need little experience when sourcing wholesale products, but it is a proven fact that due to prices with up to 90% off RRP there is a lot of room for substantial profit.

Most of the high-end retailers and manufacturers all over the world offer raw returned stock for sale to B2B trading platforms and wholesalers as part of their stock clearance program. Therefore, raw returns have a market for resell and it is up to you to make a success out of it.

Wholesale Stock – The easy way to start an online business

In the era of Social Media and Smartphones you can set up an online business in many ways and there are endless ideas on what you could sell. From finding the best wholesale stock suppliers to buying surplus stock or refurbished appliances, here are some fresh tips about the online market to get you going.

One of the most successful ways of online business is selling on eBay. This is now almost as common as using Google, so why aren’t you already doing it? This is a business system that has been proven very successful over the last years: buy surplus stock with all kinds of products or even refurbished appliances from a trusted wholesaler, put it on eBay and your stream of income will start growing immediately. Most times you can find products from famous brands at the lowest prices on the market on wholesale stock online platforms such as sellatonce.com.



It’s important to find great products to sell, but this is not enough, you will need great products at the best price. The first thing you need is a trusted online platform of wholesale stock who can deliver what you want at the best quality, on time and make sure they are also flexible with their clients in order to get the best deal for your business.

The process of finding the right wholesaler to start your eBay or eCommerce business may be the most important decision you will have to make. Selling products online is easy, when you have the right resources and suppliers you can trust.

Another thing you have to take into consideration is online buying trends. As the consumer electronics category leads the expansion of online shopping you should definitely take a closer look at surplus stocks or refurbished appliances that have great deals on online trading platforms like britcomdirect.com or biggestclearance.com. Both are free of charge for buyers and sellers.

Tips:
- After you have found your wholesale stock provider, it’s better to start with a small order so you can analyze the order process and the quality of the products. This way you will reduce your risk.

- Look up the supplier: You can always look for reviews on Google because it’s important to be informed. Be very systematic when examining your suppliers’ offers and their reputation before you give them your money.

- One way to do that is to visit personally the warehouse of the wholesalers you chose. Some wholesales actually encourage you to visit them and get to know their products.

- Warnings: It’s better to check for yourself the products you are about to buy in order to avoid the scams of some suppliers on Alibaba.com and it is also cost effective to buy from a nearby country, given the fact that the mentioned website is based in China.


Want to learn more about wholesale stock? Sign in to one of these online B2B trading platforms and start learning how it works.

European alternatives to Chinese suppliers of wholesale stock

When you are looking for wholesale stock to purchase on the international market, large marketplaces like Alibaba.com offer a great variety of suppliers of liquidation stock, clearance and bankrupt stock, customer returns, refurbished appliances, consumer electronics and other consumer goods, but the possibilities of really checking their credentials and entering a trusty business partnership with them are time consuming and sometimes quite expensive.

Avoid these risks by searching for European suppliers of wholesale stock who work directly with Europe-based manufacturers for clearing their stock. Why go all the way to China when you can have access directly to liquidation stock from branded manufacturers and retailers all over Europe?

You can start by doing some research in your own market, looking for wholesalers or distributors of brand new stock and liquidation stock in your category of interest. Manufacturers usually provide a list of partners they work with in this channel. If you would like to import from other markets than your own, the Internet offers plenty of resources for finding European suppliers of wholesale stock:


1. Find online wholesale stock suppliers that have pan-European partnerships with brand manufacturers based in Europe. Britcomdirect.com is one of these European trading companies that are able to supply wholesale stock lots of refurbished appliances and liquidation stock of home and garden products sourced from all European brand manufacturers and retailers. The deals they offer benefit from the direct sourcing from manufacturers’ warehouses and low logistics rates because of the market proximity. Another such company is Thebiggestclearance.com.

2. Check out European based online marketplaces. Websites like Zentrada.eu and Eurotradenet.com put together wholesale stock offers from suppliers working mainly in the European market. These publishers verify the suppliers they present on their websites and they are easy to contact via online customer support or phone. They can even give you references and details about the supplier you are interested in. When you establish contact with these European based suppliers of wholesale stock, it will be easier for you to establish a first business meeting or visit to check up on the stock you want to buy.

3. European Trade shows are the places to meet and make contacts among brand manufacturers in Europe and their partners for stock liquidation. IFA in Berlin is maybe the most popular trade show for appliances, consumer electronics and other consumer goods, but there are plenty of other local trade shows where you can find your next partner for purchasing wholesale stock - like the Spring Fair in the UK.

Clearance stock - How does this work?

Would you like to find out more on the stock clearance supply chain? Here are more details on how this works:

Also known as the reverse supply chain, the process of stock clearance represents the process of management (collection, upgrade, disposal, reselling and logistics) of all categories of ‘secondary’ inventory:

- Slow moving surplus stock (new unsold products)
- End-of-life and obsolete stock (unsold old model products)
- Manufacturer first and second choice products (rejected on the production lines because of substandard design features)
- Refurbished (customer returns or products displayed on store shelves that have been tested and restored technically and aesthetically)
- Raw returns (retail products returned by end-users within return policy terms and conditions)
- Used products (previously sold and put in used products, may present clear signs of use)

The stock clearance reverse supply chain usually starts from manufacturers’ and resellers’ need to dispose of large quantities of unsold consumer goods, of their recurrent raw customer returns and of obsolete stocks created by industry innovations and by changes in consumer demand trends.

Brand manufacturers and retailers usually work with dedicated partners for the disposal of their clearance stock that is re-sold in wholesale on the secondary market or is recycled.

Companies like Britcomdirect.com for appliances and DIY tools or Anovo for multimedia devices, handle both upgrading of raw returns (by professional refurbishing and repair of faulty products in ISO accredited facilities) and reselling of surplus stock to their network of international wholesale buyers and traders. The different types of clearance stock are then sold in local markets to clearance resellers and retailers.

In some cases, depending on the suppliers’ network of distribution, retailers and local resellers can buy clearance stock directly from these dedicated wholesale suppliers, which gives these small businesses a great advantage on the deals and the potential margins they can make from selling surplus stock to end-users, in outlet-type stores and on big e-commerce platforms like Ebay.com.

Finding great clearance stock deals worldwide is especially possible thanks to the development of the online environment. On the web you can find online trading businesses that offer various quality services for retail businesses in search of good suppliers of clearance stock. These services start from contact sourcing and business development, to online publishing of buying and selling leads, promotion of stock opportunities and of other companies’ services and online purchasing of surplus stock in bulk.

To give you some examples, international online marketplaces (e.g. alibaba.com) allow buyers and sellers in the stock clearance industry to find stock opportunities, connect and start remote business relationships; online auction websites (e.g. stockshifters.com) allow resellers and suppliers to publish their own offers online and sell them through automatic bidding systems; big stock clear

The Best Liquidation Stock Deals for Wholesale Appliances

Wholesale appliances is one of those trading niches that can bring significant margins to resellers, distributors and retailers who decide to go into buying and selling these types of consumer goods. Liquidation stock deals can sometimes offer margins of up to 50% off RRP for stock lots of brand new and refurbished wholesale appliances.

Compared with consumer electronics, where liquidation stock deals rarely offer resellers 5% margins, profit on buying wholesale appliances and reselling them to retailers or distributors can go up to 20% of RRP depending on the type of goods and category of products (from blenders to microwave ovens and fridges, the commercial value and margins on domestic appliances vary a lot) .

So where can you find the best liquidation stock deals for wholesale appliances? Here are some routes you might want to check out:

1. Find the biggest wholesalers of appliances in your market

Start by gathering information and connecting with the biggest wholesalers of appliances in your market. They can be either direct distributors of brand manufacturers in your country, wholesale companies handling local stock liquidation for multiple brands or importers of wholesale appliances from other regions of the world.

Ask for referrals from peers in your industry, look into online business directories in your country or participate in local trade shows and fairs (like the Spring Fair in the UK), the ideal place for making face-to-face contact with suppliers and inspecting the type of stock they are offering.

The advantages of local suppliers of wholesale appliances are the opportunity of seeing first hand the stock of interest to you and the opportunity to buy the stock at very low rates because of the proximity.

2. Look for liquidation stock deals on the Internet

The Internet offers unlimited resources for finding new suppliers of wholesale appliances outside your market. Online marketplaces like Alibaba.com are a great place to find suppliers of almost anything in this world, and to link with stock liquidation companies or traders of the type of wholesale appliances your are interested in purchasing.

The advantage of these marketplaces is the great variety of products and suppliers of wholesale appliances you can contact and start business with. Because of the international environment, pricing of the liquidation stock they offer may vary quite a bit. Also pay attention to supplier’s credentials and the details of the liquidation stock they are putting up for sale. Other elements to take into consideration when importing from other countries are: the cost of transport, the legislation in your country regarding the type of appliances your are wanting to buy, the legal papers for customs etc.

3. Try out refurbished appliances

Professionally refurbished appliances are a great solution for making great deals out of trading wholesale appliances, because they often get sold at under 40% of RRP by wholesalers and clearance companies in this line of business.

Refurbished appliances are customer returned goods that are technically and cosmetically inspected and repaired in order to be perfectly functional and resold on the ‘secondary market’ of consumer goods. You can find these type of goods on auction websites like Liquidation.com and thebiggestclearance.com, from various wholesalers dealing with liquidation stock and customer returns. Or you can purchase directly from companies that are refurbishing branded appliances, like the trading platform Britcomdirect.com, where you can find a large collection of wholesale appliances from top manufacturers based in Europe.

Stock Liquidation Companies on the Internet

The stock liquidation industry had undergone a lot of changes in the past few years, developing more and more in an online environment. Today the Internet offers a massive load of opportunities for retailers, distributors and wholesalers to purchase liquidation stock online. We present here three of the online B2B businesses out there that offer trading and liquidation services to manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, traders and resellers.

TheBiggestClearance.com

is a global marketplace for B2B as well as B2C trading of liquidation stock, bankrupt stock, refurbished and raw customer returns, offering to both Sellers and Buyers a place to post and advertise their stock online. By registering on this online marketplace, you can benefit from free online merchant or buyer accounts, an online store for sellers, online enquiries management and safe online transactions. You can browse for liquidation stock offers from a variety of product categories and conditions from resellers and wholesalers from all over the world. The website offers the possibility of contacting the seller before purchasing a stock offer, but you need to create a buyer account in order to see the contact details.

Liquidation.com
Is an online auction marketplace targeting small business and web based retailers as well as resellers in search of suppliers of liquidation stock, salvage and clearance products, used or raw returns. Sellers have the option to create their own auction listings and promote their liquidation stock, refurbished and returned stock lots through the online bidding system where buyers can place bids on the offerings of interest to them. Every buyer needs to create a buyer account and is bound to submit shipping and billing information in order to place bids on the stock lots displayed on this auction site. The user can browse through a variety of categories of products, from fashion items to industrial machinery, ranging from packages to few pallets stock lots.

BritcomDirect.com
Is a B2B Trading Platform for new surplus stock, refurbished stock and raw customer returns, specializing mainly in selling liquidation stock by the truckload and refurbished wholesale appliances, DIY and gardening tools, home fitment items and consumer electronics.

Unlike the other B2B marketplaces, this online trading platform offers stock lots on behalf of manufacturers, retailers and distributors. Taking care of all aspects related to publishing, marketing, selling and shipping refurbished and liquidation stock Lots. Buyers can browse for wholesale lots in the specially designed categories and search for products they are interested in through a user friendly internal search engine or can receive the latest available stock offers directly in their inbox, by subscribing to daily rich e-mails. This website has quite a unique selling system: it allows buyers to buy stock lots immediately at their displayed selling price or to submit Best Offers on specific lots (how much they are willing to pay for it) by simply creating an online buyer account. It allows you to manage e-mail subscriptions, offers and invoices directly online and have access to customer support services that will guide you through the entire sales process, from online ordering to shipping the stock to your destination and after-sales services.

These are just a few examples of global resources that offer online trading services for wholesale liquidation stock, refurbished and raw returns buyers. Stock liquidation is becoming, with the help of the Internet, a more transparent and a more secure business, every day.

Trading Wholesale Stock - Options for better profitability

The current economic landscape offers great opportunities for sole traders of wholesale stock and trading companies to consolidate their profits by looking after specific categories of stock, such as obsolete and surplus stock, ex-catalogue stocks, customer returns and refurbished products. If you are in the business of trading wholesale stock, here are a few of these options explained.

Surplus Stock
Surplus stock normally refers to unsold brand new products, with no signs of usage or damage, that are still in their original package. It originates mainly from manufacturer overstock or obsolete stock (end-of-line or unsold products that can’t be sold by the manufacturer or the retailer anymore because of age of model).

Stock types that are similar to surplus stock:
- Factory first choice and second choice stock : products that have been rejected at factory quality inspection for cosmetic reasons. These products are perfectly functional, but cannot be sold as new because of manufacturer standards.

- Ex-catalogue stock and cancelled orders: products that are brand new items that have been exposed in stores and showrooms and haven’t been sold or have been returned without being opened by end-users.

Surplus stock is usually available at specific wholesalers and stock liquidators in your market.

You can find their offers of surplus stock on trading shows and trading magazines, but also on big marketplaces and all over the Internet, such as Liquidation.com and Stockshifters.com

You can always try to reach brand manufacturers or retailers directly but these companies usually work with preferred partners for clearing their entire excess inventory stock in bulk. This is the case for Britcomdirect.com, a company that deals directly with manufacturers and retailers and sells online branded surplus stock to traders and other wholesale buyers.

Refurbished Stock
Refurbished products are customer returns that have gone through a grading process (full functional testing and cosmetic upgrade). The degree of their repairs and aesthetic look result in different grades of refurbished products, which are priced and sold accordingly. This is why having full information on the grading system and condition of the refurbished stock is usually desired when doing trading deals with this type of goods.

Refurbished appliances such as electronic devices and home and garden products are fully functional products that can be traded at considerably big discounts and represent a convenient way of leveraging income for retail businesses.

Customer returns offers can be found on many occasions in the trading business, but there are actually very few companies that offer professionally refurbished products in massive quantities. Anovo and Britcomdirect.com are two examples of European companies that own their own refurbishing facilities. The latter offers real opportunities, through it’s B2B Trading Platform, for traders who would like to buy refurbished appliances and consumer electronics by the truckload.

Reasons to consider surplus stock and customer returned refurbished goods when trading:

1. Retailers and manufacturers of consumer goods are constantly looking for efficient channels of clearing their overstocks, obsolete products and customer returned goods. This is especially the case in the most dynamic industries, such as consumer electronics, household appliances and fashion. Brand manufacturers and big retailers in these industries usually demonstrate a real urgency in clearing their old lines of products or surplus stocks in order to deal with cost management pressures and market trends.

2. The potential margins made on trading surplus stock and refurbished appliances such as gadgets and Hi-Fi products are considerably higher, because of the discounted nature of these goods but also because of the expansion of these type of niche businesses in the retail sector - from discount shops and factory outlets to online shops and small resellers on Ebay.