Just one quick note besides the great info. above. TRY to bid on lots that have manifests. I just took a big hit on stuff that I probably couldn't give away. Pictures looked good, I understood about it being a sample of pictures and the fine print ' you may not recieve all items pictured but will be of same quality and like design'. What did I get, not one item pictured, and some garbage I wouldn't put in a child's boutique. Buyer be wary of lots with no manifests, you could open a box with who know's what in it!
Manifested loads are important, especially when you are new at this.
The big problem buying at a site like liquidation.com is that you have individual suppliers auctioning their stock, and you have to ask yourself where did they get it, and why are the auctioning it.
A lot of liquidation.com auctions are from people buying direct from liquidators themselves. What happens is they cheery pick the loads and pass off the crap via auction.
Cherry picking simply means that they buy in bulk, take out everything with serious value to sell themselves, and then dump what is left back through auction to get some cash flow.
Not saying you can't get good deals, because you can. You make sure you know what you are bidding on, because you can come unstuck really easily when buying like this.