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Buying Liquidated Pallets
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by: zllgl07
New SaleHoo Member
2 posts
Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 31 Mar 09 3:58 am.
Hi I am looking into buying a liquidated pallet from PPWDG, I was wondering if anyone here has purchased a pallet there and what is the average gross profit margin on that pallet? Thanks for any responses in advance. -
by: fudjj
SaleHoo Staff
2858 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 31 Mar 09 4:19 am.
You should find a few have purchased, however you are not going to get an accurate average figure on a pallet sale unless you tighten the judging criteria.
Each product load will give different results, each marketplace can give different results, in fact each load of the same products will give you different results.
Work out on what you want to judge value by and then others may be in a better position to give you more reliable feedback.
You may also want to post this question on the ppwdg website forum as that is where you will find a lot of jimmy's customers.Marc Ransom
Community Manager
SaleHoo.com
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by: zllgl07
New SaleHoo Member
2 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 31 Mar 09 4:51 am.
ok thanks for your help, I have sold on ebay for quite a few yeas now, do you have any other venues that seem to work well for you personally ? Thanks Zac -
by: fudjj
SaleHoo Staff
2858 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 31 Mar 09 5:13 am.
Hi Zac, we are actually a b2b structure like ppwdg, both dealing in liquidated merchandise. So we supply businesses and private sellers, both online and offline, with stock.
Given that, our sales results can be very different to retail sellers operating on the same platform.
It's hard to beat ebay for straight out traffic, but if you use ebay as your anchor point and start using some of the free listing sites, of course I am going to say Bonanzle because we sell our stock from that platform, but there are a few others that you can start spreading your marketing around with.
CheersMarc Ransom
Community Manager
SaleHoo.com
About the Community Manager -
by: jimmy_huber
SaleHoo Master Member
2868 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 31 Mar 09 5:17 pm.
You cant really get an estimated profit on liquidations. Its a risk industry just like any other sales margin. You are buying either customer returns, Overstocks and In store items that never sold.
From my experience its a 4 out of 5 Profit margin. 4 Pallets out of 5 bring nice profits. But the good thing about pallet purchases is that the risk is small. If you actually loose money on a pallet its generally very small.
The highest profit pallets are generally the highest priced pallets. The way most retailers that have custom pallet orders set it up where the best of the best is charged a higher price. I tend to only buy $2500 pallets for my own sales so many of my pallets are loaded with more high end products and less work inspecting and replacing parts on a unit.
Lower cost pallets have more work associated but are still very profitable. And lower cost pallets is where I originally started.
People with experience in this industry make very good money. Pallets always have been and will always be the best way to make money online on places like ebay and amazon sites.Wholesale Directory by SaleHoo
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by: dwmgoods35
SaleHoo Master Member
314 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 31 Mar 09 9:29 pm.
You cant really get an estimated profit on liquidations. Its a risk industry just like any other sales margin. You are buying either customer returns, Overstocks and In store items that never sold.
Hey Jimmy,
From my experience its a 4 out of 5 Profit margin. 4 Pallets out of 5 bring nice profits. But the good thing about pallet purchases is that the risk is small. If you actually loose money on a pallet its generally very small.
The highest profit pallets are generally the highest priced pallets. The way most retailers that have custom pallet orders set it up where the best of the best is charged a higher price. I tend to only buy $2500 pallets for my own sales so many of my pallets are loaded with more high end products and less work inspecting and replacing parts on a unit.
Lower cost pallets have more work associated but are still very profitable. And lower cost pallets is where I originally started.
People with experience in this industry make very good money. Pallets always have been and will always be the best way to make money online on places like ebay and amazon sites.
This may be a silly question and if it has already been answered I am sorry. I recently purchased a pallet from H & J Closeouts. What would you say is the first step to figure out how to price everything in order to focus on making a profilt from the pallet? More specifically I paid roughly $600 including shipping and trying to figure out the best direction to go with pricing each piece. Would it be benefical to list certain items as bulk?
Thanks in advance,
Don -
by: planes
Forum Moderator
843 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 1 Apr 09 2:33 am.
There are a couple of ways to go about making money from a pallet.You cant really get an estimated profit on liquidations. Its a risk industry just like any other sales margin. You are buying either customer returns, Overstocks and In store items that never sold.
Hey Jimmy,
From my experience its a 4 out of 5 Profit margin. 4 Pallets out of 5 bring nice profits. But the good thing about pallet purchases is that the risk is small. If you actually loose money on a pallet its generally very small.
The highest profit pallets are generally the highest priced pallets. The way most retailers that have custom pallet orders set it up where the best of the best is charged a higher price. I tend to only buy $2500 pallets for my own sales so many of my pallets are loaded with more high end products and less work inspecting and replacing parts on a unit.
Lower cost pallets have more work associated but are still very profitable. And lower cost pallets is where I originally started.
People with experience in this industry make very good money. Pallets always have been and will always be the best way to make money online on places like ebay and amazon sites.
This may be a silly question and if it has already been answered I am sorry. I recently purchased a pallet from H & J Closeouts. What would you say is the first step to figure out how to price everything in order to focus on making a profilt from the pallet? More specifically I paid roughly $600 including shipping and trying to figure out the best direction to go with pricing each piece. Would it be benefical to list certain items as bulk?
Thanks in advance,
Don
One is to list everything on eBay for .99 cents with precise shipping. Meaning only charge the actual cost of shipping. Then let the market decide.
The advantages are you will get a lot of lookers and traffic and possibly a lot of bidding wars and maybe sell stuff for more than its worth.
The disadvantages or really just one is you will sell some stuff or all at at lower
price than it can get on eBay.
The other is to research the final selling price on eBay for your item and sell at or around that price.
I purchased a sample order from Jimmy and listed the more valuable items at a set price.
I sold every item I sold at a fixed price for the price I was asking with one selling for 10 less as I offered best offer on it. I asked 60 and got 50 plus shipping.
You have to play around with your options.
You will get a feel for it. Some items just do better in auction. I never sell DVDs at anything other than auction format. They are normally a lower cost item and buyers are more willing to bid and pay a little more.
If your serious about this which I assume you are then Terapeak is a must. Spend the 30 bucks per month and use it to research all of your products.
Oh! and dont forget about Amazon and Craigslist.
If you want to see if you can get top dollar for some of the items, Craigslist is free to list and no seller fees. You could start there to try to get the most for your items without risking any money. -
by: fudjj
SaleHoo Staff
2858 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 1 Apr 09 2:58 am.
Selling in bulk can also be effective if you have enough of the same items.
I know we have a client that is buying 1000 pieces of make up, repackaging into smaller lots, unsure as to what size, then listing them on liquidation.com for auction.
I haven't asked how they are doing because it's none of my business, but they are buying 1000 units every two weeks, so I'm assuming they are doing OK....lol
As a general rule, listing individual items is more time consuming, more expensive, but it should get you a better price at the end of the day.
Selling in bulk is quicker, cheaper and while the margin may be down on individual listings, that can be more than made up for with turnover if you are moving stock.
If your load is mixed products, I would suggest listing individual units would be the best way to go.Marc Ransom
Community Manager
SaleHoo.com
About the Community Manager -
by: dwmgoods35
SaleHoo Master Member
314 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 1 Apr 09 3:04 am.
Selling in bulk can also be effective if you have enough of the same items.
Yeah my pallet Has some mixed tote boxes but there are others that I have 5 or 6 boxes worth and each are like 70 of the same pieces each. So overall I have more bulk stock than lose items. I will have to look into Liquidation.com.
I know we have a client that is buying 1000 pieces of make up, repackaging into smaller lots, unsure as to what size, then listing them on liquidation.com for auction.
I haven't asked how they are doing because it's none of my business, but they are buying 1000 units every two weeks, so I'm assuming they are doing OK....lol
As a general rule, listing individual items is more time consuming, more expensive, but it should get you a better price at the end of the day.
Selling in bulk is quicker, cheaper and while the margin may be down on individual listings, that can be more than made up for with turnover if you are moving stock.
If your load is mixed products, I would suggest listing individual units would be the best way to go.
Thanks,
Don -
by: fudjj
SaleHoo Staff
2858 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 1 Apr 09 4:50 am.
Don't over look ebay if you are doing bulk either Don, but for some reason liquidation.com does seem to get better prices for the stock than ebay does.Marc Ransom
Community Manager
SaleHoo.com
About the Community Manager -
by: jmoon87
SaleHoo Senior Member
123 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 1 Apr 09 12:07 pm.
Ebay is great to buy wholesale from right now ,Not sure how well to sell as everything i get is real cheap and when i do bulk something doesnt seem to seel for as much as it used to...I got 9 pallets (box truck ) from a guy off there from that had bought 2 semi trucks full from Dicks Sporting Goods ..He just wanted to liquidate what was left .I ended splitting it with my sister as i didnt have enough space in my storage unit and knew it would be months before i could get to it so didnt want to rent more more storage ..But we got 3500 money items for $5000 than shipping was about $1800 -- ...than it also incuded another 5,000 small items like bumber stickers - key chains -pennants and 1 pallet of returns .My sister has sold $11,400 off a $3400 investment , plus has about 50% left but is the lesser items after picking threw and sheis bulking most of the rest on ebay but not getting much but it is all profit now... The key to this like i tell so many people is - i simply saw a auction with a LOT of 50 superbowl shirts for $50 and i emailed and asked if he had more stuff and 'the rest is history ' we worked out a price and away we go ...i spend 1-3 hours a day soliciting people off of ebay .this month alone i have 700 units from 3 different people that did not have them listed on ebay .you would be surprised at how many people do exactly this.. people love to save the fees and sell direct. -
by: jimmy_huber
SaleHoo Master Member
2868 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 2 Apr 09 10:00 am.
Actually I tried the 99Cent route a while back and ended up taking a beating. Yes it will generate a massive amount of sales but in the end are you really making profits?
For instance I ran 260 Auctions. And 260 auctions closed. All with a sale. The totals were nice. But I sold about 78 of them for $1.00
After looking at these items I noticed I was selling $200 items for $1.00
I had a nice weekly total But:
I added the possible sale price up and estimated that I lost over 5K in possible sales.
I have since learned to be patient. I list the item at my price. And let it go. I have sold so many items so close to retail its not even funny. Yes the item may sit there for a little bit. But the item sells at my price. I now list a lot fewer items but make way more money. I average about $4-5k for every 45 Auctions I close. An average closing cost of $66-$80 on many items.
If I did this with that huge run. I could have made way more then I did back then.Wholesale Directory by SaleHoo
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by: fudjj
SaleHoo Staff
2858 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 2 Apr 09 10:31 am.
Patience can really pay off.
It's funny how some think that if the product doesn't sell the week it's listed, then it's not going to sell.
Take a regular offline business, if they threw products out that didn't sell the moment they put them on the shelf, they wouldn't hold many products at all!
An online shop works like an offline shop, with different customers entering your site every day of every week, and while it would be nice to have the right customer turn up the moment you list a product, not always gonna happen so give yourself a chance.
If you cut and run too early, others will benefit from your losses, and that's not good business.Marc Ransom
Community Manager
SaleHoo.com
About the Community Manager -
by: jimmy_huber
SaleHoo Master Member
2868 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 2 Apr 09 1:44 pm.
Yes and that very reason is why many fail in the liquidation business. They try to move the products too fast. I have had items listed that get re listed 3 or 4 times. But they eventually get a sale. There is a buyer for anything and everything. You just have to be the one presenting that item.
For instance. I had a suitcase pallet a few months ago. I listed 4 units for 99Cents starting bid. They all closed and I barely made $80 on them. I paid i think $200 for the pallet.
It was the lowest priced pallet macys had in that category and I chose it as a test pallet for myself. Most of them were in mint condition but some had a problem with the handles. After tinkering with them I figured out how to fix all of those with bad handles. I then ran many of the suitcases with Higher prices. All buy it now. It took me 2 months but now most of them are sold. And Im sitting on about 700 Profit on that pallet. And I still have several suitcases I haven't even listed yet. Just imagine if I bought 5 pallets and had a ton of them listed. I sat on the products longer and turned a pallet that might have barely broke even into a high profit pallet. Just by being patient.
Other people only sell what they personally think will sell high. And they curb the rest or even throw it away. This is something that just cant happen. Your basically putting profit in a corner to rot and taking a loss when you should list and sell it.
I have watched successful sellers even selling something remote as a onion peeler. Yeah its a small item but even if you sell it for $4.00 thats $4.00 more in your pocket. You have 30 items like that on a pallet selling for the same price and you have $120 in profit on that pallet that some toss in a corner and don't sell.
So yes patience always pays off. If your in a hurry then you will loose potential profits you could have made. Just because your item did not sell that week does not mean it wont sell on another. It just means that buyer wasnt looking for your item at the time you started the listing.Wholesale Directory by SaleHoo
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by: jmoon87
SaleHoo Senior Member
123 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 2 Apr 09 10:18 pm.
Patience can really pay off.
Very True , i have normally 3,000 items up but only sell 200-300 items a week on avg ..keep most in my ebay store and still turn good profit only selling 5-10% each week of what i have listed ...you can have 2500 items in your store and it is only $75 a month for the listings .I have stuff sometimes sit for months before selling , it just depends on how much money you have to work with .
It's funny how some think that if the product doesn't sell the week it's listed, then it's not going to sell.
Take a regular offline business, if they threw products out that didn't sell the moment they put them on the shelf, they wouldn't hold many products at all!
An online shop works like an offline shop, with different customers entering your site every day of every week, and while it would be nice to have the right customer turn up the moment you list a product, not always gonna happen so give yourself a chance.
If you cut and run too early, others will benefit from your losses, and that's not good business. -
by: GRBoutique
SaleHoo Master Member
289 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 2 Apr 09 11:17 pm.
This is very true! Patience always pay off in the end. What I do when I am having a slow sale in one month is to actually run at least 3-5 auctions that I know will generate bids to get more traffics on my other items and so far, it is working. If I run an auction for 7 days on items I know will generate bids, and my other items are not getting much traffic, almost instantly, I get watchers on those particular items and get sales.
I will try to run a lot of auctions though this coming week to move stocks and see if my profit will match what my expected profit is if I had them in Fixed Price. I mainly sell liquidated electronics which are brand new, just have minor damage boxes so I know they will generate bids close to my expected price range. -
by: jimmy_huber
SaleHoo Master Member
2868 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 3 Apr 09 11:28 am.
Very True , i have normally 3,000 items up but only sell 200-300 items a week on avg ..keep most in my ebay store and still turn good profit only selling 5-10% each week of what i have listed ...you can have 2500 items in your store and it is only $75 a month for the listings .I have stuff sometimes sit for months before selling , it just depends on how much money you have to work with .
Yes this is very true. It does take money to make money. I think that was the main reason for the problems I had with the samples I offered on my site. To me they were only samples but many expected them to be the golden pot of profits.
Ive never had any quams from my pallet customers. Because they got way more items to sell then a sample buyer.
The more you have to sell is generally the way your going to make a living in this business. If you cant afford more then a pallet you really don't belong in this industry. You need to have a nice amount of stock to be able to comfortably do this.Wholesale Directory by SaleHoo
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by: jmoon87
SaleHoo Senior Member
123 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 3 Apr 09 3:13 pm.
The more you have to sell is generally the way your going to make a living in this business. If you cant afford more then a pallet you really don't belong in this industry. You need to have a nice amount of stock to be able to comfortably do this.
Jimmy , You are correct , it pains me to tell peole that but it is true...if you are only working with a few thousands dollars it is gonna be tough to do it full time. Even if you have money its tuff as you have to work hard to find good products ...One of my suppliers is a 28 year old guy that is in the top 140 sellers on ebay ..he gives me his leftovers so to speak .. he keeps about 8,000-10,000 listings up.. 1000-1500 items a week on avg sell ..is single not married and besides the books does it all himself ..Never been able to get it out of him what he makes but he did let it slip when he had a issue over a neg fb that he paid over 250k in ebay fees last year ....good luck to all. -
by: jimmy_huber
SaleHoo Master Member
2868 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 4 Apr 09 5:45 pm.
Thats awesome to have that many listings. If Im lucky I can get 35 Up on my own each week. That of course will change here very soon as I am about to start a large listing campaign. My goal is to have 1,000 listings up but 8,000 is very impressive.Wholesale Directory by SaleHoo
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by: Bubbles-erin
SaleHoo Senior Member
52 posts
Re: Buying Liquidated Pallets
Posted 4 Apr 09 8:27 pm.
Another great thing is flea market, almost anything sells there. I have heard that you shouldnt just depend on eBay to sell items, and its true. Craigslist and other auctions sites are great. Flea markets are generally inexpensive to get a booth at and there are alot of great things that sell. My husband and I used to go to one here all the time,but it closed down, now I am the one looking for one to go to to sell things. My hope is to get a booth at one that is open 6 days a week and list things online-hopefully if I get a laptop. Right now I do not have a lot of money to throw into this, but I do agree partially that it does take money to make money....but creativity can get you a long way too. Just because someone cant afford a pallet now, doesnt mean they wont work their way up to them...I know that jimmy has said he started with liquidation.com clothing lots...we all have to start somewhere. no one start instantly making, generating, of supplying thousands of dollars of merchandise...
