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.