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maser_spyder
Original Poster
5,602 posts
51 months
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Hi Chaps,
Looking for some options on clearing some graded stock.
Approx. 400 children's ride on toys, plus a load of other small toy items.
Mixture of A and B grade, ex-photo items, courier losses that have eventually surfaced with tatty packaging, customer returns that are assembled but good, etc. We're picking out any damaged/unusable and recycling, so it's all 'good/working' stock.
I did have somebody lined up to run a 'clearance' shop, but that turned sour. Due to the packaging, I would guess only around 2/3 to 3/4 would be suitable to ship by courier (otherwise I'd retail them under 'clearance' on our own websites). Ideally, it would suit a Christmas shop or existing toy shop, or something similar. Basically, something on a high street where customers can walk in and take away.
Don't want to ebay them as I'd rather build this around a repeat partner to move our returns to.
I've thought about the pallet clearance guys (stockshifters, etc) but not sure I want to go down this route.
The only other option I can see is to open a shop ourselves, which isn't appealing at all, I really don't want to get in to retail.
Where do people normally move their returns to?
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eliot
5,324 posts
123 months
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Walk down your local independant £ shop?
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maser_spyder
Original Poster
5,602 posts
51 months
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eliot said: Walk down your local independant £ shop? Around 3-4 40' artic loads. They retail at £100 - £150, so not really £1 shop type kit.
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mondeoman
6,797 posts
135 months
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WOW - {goes out back to check storage space ...} 
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fellatthefirst
192 posts
24 months
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Can't you just have boxes made here in the UK and send them our yourself? We did it with a load of office chairs a couple of yrs back. The Chinese thought it would be a good idea to pack 2 office chairs per box. Because I guess they thought each of our customers would buy two.... 
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maser_spyder
Original Poster
5,602 posts
51 months
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fellatthefirst said: Can't you just have boxes made here in the UK and send them our yourself? We did it with a load of office chairs a couple of yrs back. The Chinese thought it would be a good idea to pack 2 office chairs per box. Because I guess they thought each of our customers would buy two.... All different sized products. And to be honest, a bit of a nightmare to work through with the different grades. Absolutely perfect for a clearance shop, different price on every product, take it away 'as seen'. It's just finding the right person in the right place who has the space, and wants to earn some ££££ Daltons or Exchange and Mart worth a try?
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JABB
3,164 posts
105 months
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I am trying to think of a way we could get involved with my wife's business, as you are Cheltenham based if I recall, but......
Have you thought about a ebay trading partner. Someone how deals with everything and anything on ebay who would take a percentage. This way, it would be a repeat process.
The key would be good photos and good honest description. You could / they could get boxes catering for 80% maybe and fill the boxes with packing to fill voids on smaller goods?
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miniman
16,015 posts
131 months
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I'll take two decent ones off your hands! Can collect from next months beer & business at Minchinhampton
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fellatthefirst
192 posts
24 months
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What sort of sale price are you looking for?
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simoncrowe
94 posts
45 months
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What price would you be looking at? Pm me with details.
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ctsdave
493 posts
43 months
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Hi, ould you send me details of what you have and what your looking for them too please. Ta, Dave.
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maser_spyder
Original Poster
5,602 posts
51 months
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Hi Chaps,
Prices are going to be somewhere around 40-60% of normal retail prices (realistic retail prices, not pie in the sky Groupon type retail prices), so with the right outlet, there's a chance to make a decent profit.
It's honestly not a garage-run business, and not really suitable for e-commerce either. Although there's no technical reason somebody couldn't do this, it would create soooo much work doing it this way (due to the fact there's no more than a couple of the same item in the same colour, etc.), profits would be wiped out.
Market stall or retail shop or something similar would be the most efficient way of selling, so ideally, I need to find somebody that is already doing this sort of thing.
Actually, I'm happy to offer credit on it, as at the moment, it's just eating storage costs for no return.
Drop me a pm if you want to pass on anything anonymously!
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timskipper
1,201 posts
135 months
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Could you ping me an email with what you've got etc? I might have an outlet for some of it at least.
sales @ balance1st dot co dot uk
ta.
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JABB
3,164 posts
105 months
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Interesting. As retailers, we would want to pay 50% or retail price on grade A goods. ( General rule double plus VAT )
40 - 60% doesn't seem enough to make it worthwhile selling graded stock.
Argos and the likes sell graded at 70 - 75% minimum off retail to clear.
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951TSE
212 posts
26 months
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How about selling palleted lots on Ebay? seems to be quite a few company's doing it not just Stockshifters. Just find a price for someone like 'palletway' to ship it and do a list of the pallet contents.
As for packaging could you ask the original manufacturer if they could sell you new boxes, I used to work in a returns warehouse a long time ago where the manufacturers were quite happy to do that providing we marked the items as seconds.
One thing you may need to look at is if you're the only company that sells a particular item you need to guard against the unscrupulous returning a second which they bought cheap for a full new sale refund. It's common for clothes manufacturers that sell seconds to remove the labels, you might want to look at doing a similar thing.
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maser_spyder
Original Poster
5,602 posts
51 months
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JABB said: Interesting. As retailers, we would want to pay 50% or retail price on grade A goods. ( General rule double plus VAT )
40 - 60% doesn't seem enough to make it worthwhile selling graded stock.
Argos and the likes sell graded at 70 - 75% minimum off retail to clear. Yup, I know, but web retail is generally on around 15%, or even less if you're in IT, so it's quite a lot different. When I say graded, the A grade stuff is basically brand new and boxed, fully working.
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maser_spyder
Original Poster
5,602 posts
51 months
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951TSE said: How about selling palleted lots on Ebay? seems to be quite a few company's doing it not just Stockshifters. Just find a price for someone like 'palletway' to ship it and do a list of the pallet contents.
As for packaging could you ask the original manufacturer if they could sell you new boxes, I used to work in a returns warehouse a long time ago where the manufacturers were quite happy to do that providing we marked the items as seconds.
One thing you may need to look at is if you're the only company that sells a particular item you need to guard against the unscrupulous returning a second which they bought cheap for a full new sale refund. It's common for clothes manufacturers that sell seconds to remove the labels, you might want to look at doing a similar thing. Can't ship by pallet, the items over-hang the ends of standard pallets so a pallet courier wouldn't accept them (or would charge double). They could be collected on pallets, it's just the over-size nature that means it wouldn't be possible to ship them with a normal courier this way. Packaging would be a nightmare, and something I would want to avoid. We use seven different factories, and getting boxes for each different product from each different factory would create far too many permutations. Not worth the aggro if we can find somebody with a shop to take them off our hands! Duly noted on the 'seconds' though, I'll make sure we do something to cover this, thanks.
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cheddar
1,974 posts
43 months
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maser_spyder said: Yup, I know, but web retail is generally on around 15%, or even less if you're in IT, so it's quite a lot different.
When I say graded, the A grade stuff is basically brand new and boxed, fully working. Your price expectations appear a little high. You'll struggle to sell 4 40 foot container loads of graded goods in one pop to a business at anything like 40-60% of retail. 'Job lots, clearance lines, damaged packaging and surplus stock' as in 'take the good with the bad, but take everything' are, in my experience sold on at around 10% of retail, often less. The bigger the 'parcel' the lower the unit price. I'd like to hear how you get on, I'm sure we all would. Good luck.
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maser_spyder
Original Poster
5,602 posts
51 months
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cheddar said: maser_spyder said: Yup, I know, but web retail is generally on around 15%, or even less if you're in IT, so it's quite a lot different.
When I say graded, the A grade stuff is basically brand new and boxed, fully working. Your price expectations appear a little high. You'll struggle to sell 4 40 foot container loads of graded goods in one pop to a business at anything like 40-60% of retail. 'Job lots, clearance lines, damaged packaging and surplus stock' as in 'take the good with the bad, but take everything' are, in my experience sold on at around 10% of retail, often less. The bigger the 'parcel' the lower the unit price. I'd like to hear how you get on, I'm sure we all would. Good luck. Ah, you may have misunderstood then. This isn't 'take the good with the bad', we've taken out the bad already, it's all good left. Hence the higher pricing. The 'bad' would of course be a lot cheaper, as would a take-all deal. At the moment, I'm looking to shift the new/near perfect, as I already have a home for the scrap. Hence the shop idea. And sorry for the confusion, I meant 40-60% of our normal wholesale price, not retail (public).
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The Moose
9,007 posts
78 months
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PM sent. You got my number if you need it
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