Posts Tagged customer returns
Tips on sourcing wholesale to sell on eBay
Posted by johnb in Closeouts, Drop Shipping, Ebay, Liquidations, Wholesale, Wholesale Sources on November 14th, 2009
There are many wonderful online locations where you can purchase surplus goods for your retail business.
What exactly are surplus good? Surplus goods include items such as overstocks, closeouts, and customer returns that have been liquidated by retail stores. A wonderful thing about surplus products is that you can purchase them under wholesale cost, which means that you have the chance to make a high profit on the items that you choose to sell.
If you want to find wholesale to sell on eBay, then you should definitely looking into what is available to you from overstocks to closeouts.
As most people are already aware of, eBay is a fantastic place to sell items because there are countless people looking to buy. Every second, countless items are sold through eBay to consumers from all over the globe. This is the reason that so many individuals who want to begin a retail business will obtain wholesale to sell on eBay.
So the question is, how does one being locating a wholesale source for overstocks and closeouts? One of the greatest places to begin is to try and locate wholesale supplier. Several wholesale suppliers will have overstock items and closeout items since they have the ample storage space that is necessary to process the products. You can locate wholesale suppliers that have liquidations if you do an internet search.
However, be wary and do not get tempted to purchase one of the several wholesale suppliers lists that are being sold on eBay and other locations online because these wholesale contact lists have an extraordinary amount of information and the information you receive can be confusing and a lot of it is either outdated or useless.
When you are looking to buy wholesale and you have located a supplier that meets the needs of your business, it is a good idea to investigate what services they can offer you and the types of products that you can expect to purchase. One important tip is that you should get two or three different items to sell in the marketplace before placing a bulk order because it the item doesn’t sell well, it is a lot easier to deal with the loss if you only purchased a small supply.
Another method to use is to forge a dropship supply contract with the wholesale supplier you do business with. Drop shipping is the best setup for a business on eBay because your seller and you do not have to ever meet and you use a third party that will supply the items that you have sold. In a relationship with a drop shipper, the supplier’s catalog will be accessible to you, so you will be able to see the variety of products that are available for you to sell. The wholesale source that you work with will supply you with photographs and descriptions of the products you want so you will be able to advertise the items you are putting up for sale. This way, you will have the chance to offer items without having to buy them up front.
If you want to test out a new market or if you want to offer a broad variety of wholesale products but don’t have the money to buy them up front, then drop shipping is a wonderful solution. Your wholesale source will just ship your products once you make a sale and the items will be delivered right to your customer’s doorstep. Using this strategy, you will be able to enhance your business without having to have the necessary funds to do this.
How Sourcing Wal-Mart Wholesale Suppliers Could Improve your Business
As soon as the majority of people jump into the arena of online sales, they impulsively presume that they will be able to profit from big brand labels and garner major income like an exclusive department store. However, retailing will not typically work in this way while the majority of high-end corporations refuse to deal with smaller retail outlets. Although, there are several approaches you could employ for selling brand name merchandise in particular regions, so long as you are prepared to be educated in the current loopholes in today’s supply chain.
One of the most effective methods you could use involves sourcing some Wal-Mart wholesale suppliers. You may be curious as to why that is, so we will discuss where the loophole is found.
Big chain retailers like Costco and Wal-Mart do their business with wholesale vendors that not only find items for resale but also take care of liquidations, customer returns and overstocks. Since you are a retailer, this means that you have the chance to purchase items from Wal-Mart under the original wholesale value. This usually denotes that you could source items for as little as 10% of the original retail value. If you think about it, this means you have a chance to generate a large income just from the resale of items to consumers or you could sell them at discount prices to make just as much money; now you can see why the sourcing with Walmart wholesale suppliers is so profitable.
In order to fully comprehend where wholesale inventory like overstocks, closeouts and liquidations originate, we will go into more detail about the actual sales process. As a rule, there are several distinct reasons as to why a retailer winds up not having the ability to vend an item to their shoppers. This does not denote that their items are faulty or impaired; all it means is that the store has made some mistakes with the way they execute their sales approaches.
First, we will analyze overstocks. Overstocks are the result of large department stores that have ordered a surplus of one product for selling. It could very well be that the particular product ordered was not in demand for that specific area, or perhaps the store has not advertised their product well enough. If that is the case, overstocks that take place won’t even reach the store floor. A wholesale liquidator could buy those products at a discount value and resell them to you.
However, closeouts are another story. Closeouts are when an unusual set of products has been discounted, thus never sells. This is especially frequent with clothing. Since these items use up valuable floor space that could be used for other full-price items, they are just taken away from the display and given to a liquidation wholesale vendor.
Finally, actual liquidations take place when a store closes out for good and creditors make the effort to earn back any sort of debt.
Every one of these scenarios will result in largely reduced inventory, and if you are able to source Wal-Mart wholesale suppliers that trade in such merchandise, you could very well be in for some very profitable sales.
How to Purchase Customer Returns Wholesale While Generating a Profit
Posted by johnb in Closeouts, Home Based Business, Liquidations, Wholesale, Wholesale Sources, eBusiness on November 6th, 2009
Did you know that buying customer and store returns can be very profitable for you? Follow these easy tips to learn how. Purchasing closeouts, overstocks, and customer returns can allow you to turn a respectable profit on the items you sell. When marked at the right price point, these products can attract new customers, thereby allowing you to maximize your profits with minimal effort on your part.
Follow this first tip to learn how to buy customer returns.
If you can find a wholesale supplier, you will be able to purchase these products between 50% to 75% lower than standard retail prices. By purchasing your products at a reduced cost, you will be able to sell them at a cost that is still lower than retail while making a decent profit. These lower prices will ensure that customers return for more shopping.
Here is a second tip that will assist you in purchasing customer returns.
Since customer returns are generally sold in large quantities, you will not have much say in the products you have acquired. In order to encourage people to buy these products and to shuffle inventory that is hard to sell, try offering a free gift with every purchase.
A third tip in purchasing customer returns is to find a reputable supplier who specializes in overstocks or closeouts.
A wholesale supplier or liquidator that deals primarily with overstocks and closeouts can offer you the most merchandise for the best value. Working with a direct wholesale supplier can be especially helpful if you are new to the business of buying and selling customer returns. Dealing with a direct supplier will save you time and money because it provides you with the products your customers will want without requiring you to secure your own inventory through individual contracts.
Finally, it is very important to keep this fourth tip in mind to ensure the successful buying and selling of customer returns.
Step out of your comfort zone and try something new for a change! Doing this will allow you to explore new profit making opportunities. Because the merchandise you acquire from customer returns can be very different from what you generally carry, this doesn’t mean that these products won’t apply to new or even current customers. Don’t dismiss these products because they are different, but rather use them as an opportunity to expand and add interest to your current inventory.
Following the above tips will also assist you in purchasing store returns. While you may think that some store returns have no place in your establishment, you might try looking at other venues in which these items might sell well and generate a profit for you. There are discounted products such as canned goods, home furnishings, and other general merchandise that might not sell well in your store, but would generate a great profit at various markets, close-out stores, or catalogs.
By trying something new and stepping out of your comfort zone, you will be able to purchase goods at a deep discount and open the door to new profit making possibilities. In addition to markets, stores, and catalogs, EBay is an excellent site for selling wholesale closeouts and store returns that you have acquired.
Most importantly, the key to your success in this business is to find a reputable wholesale liquidator that can consistently provide you with a variety of store returns and closeouts. By regularly purchasing quality returned merchandise at a reduced cost, customers will return to your store time and time again because they know they can come to you for good deals. In turn, your current customers may even recruit some new customers, and your margin for profit will increase dramatically!
Reselling With Buying Wholesale Items in Bulk
Posted by johnb in Closeouts, Home Based Business, Liquidations, Wholesale, Wholesale Sources on November 3rd, 2009
Retail closeouts, overstocks and customer returns can be an ideal source for inexpensive, quality products if you are trying to start a retail business of your own and marketing to the public. These products are full of potential for profit. You simply need to understand them and how you can successfully retail them to potential customers.
Most individuals don’t understand the fact that customer returns can be resold for a profit, whether their own retail outlet is online or an actual physical location. Obviously, you need to know a few things before you purchase returns from customers.
Usually, these items have been bought and brought home by people, and as a result, most wholesale liquidators will be unable to give you the original packaging for these items which you purchase. Before your customers purchase anything, just inform them that the item does not come with the original box.
Customers usually originally return items because they are the wrong color or size, or received the item as a gift and do not want it. Some of these items may have some superficial damage, such as a dented exterior, and some may be malfunctioning entirely right out of the box. Occasionally, these items are easily fixable, but they can also provide parts to fix other items.
Alternatively, you can pursue the purchase of overstocks, another excellent way to buy bulk, wholesale products. Overstocks occur in stores when the original retailer just can’t sell the item effectively. These products are still new and pristine, but sometimes the location or marketing of the original retailer just can’t move these items. Online shops are a great place to sell these items, as you can buy them at minuscule prices and resell them to a much wider, more eager audience on the internet, which means higher profits for you.
When you buy returns from customers, you might be curious about where to resell these. This is highly dependent on what you plan on buying. Lots of items will be strong sellers on eBay, Craigslist and even at flea markets. You might also need to hunt for websites that specialize in the kind of items you want to sell so that they can reach the people that they are designed for. Products like clothes do well in a basic retail location, in addition to online and at marketplaces.
When you’re reselling and buying customer returns, it’s wise to try and thing outside of traditional selling techniques. Occasionally, it’s smart to sell wholesale products in groups, especially if it’s a type of product that someone might want more than one of. By offering a solid collection of inexpensively priced products, you’ll establish yourself as a successful retailer, and someone who understands that there are good profits to be made from customer returns at wholesale.
How to Make Large Profits with Wholesale Customer Returns
Posted by Wholesale News in Closeouts, Liquidations, Wholesale, Wholesale Sources on August 21st, 2009
Selling high-quality products to the public is one of the most worthwhile ways to make money online. Finding items that sell well and net them a nice sum of money along the way is the biggest problem that most people face. Let’s take a closer look at a few different approaches you can use to make some great profits.
When you are looking for products to sell, wholesale suppliers are one of the best sources. When you purchase your products, you’ll be able to get the lowest price and make the greatest profit you can as a result, since wholesale suppliers directly deal with the manufacturers. Picture them as a one-stop shop for every sourcing need you may have, since quality wholesale suppliers boast a large line of products and wonderful customer service.
Looking for wholesale customer returns is the next step that should be taken. Customers buying the wrong product and slightly damaged products are usually the reason for these returns. As a result, it’s usually hit-or-miss when it comes to what you can find since these returns are usually collected in bulk lots of a large assortment of products. wholesale customer returns are famous for their low purchase prices on the other hand though. Great profits can come from these returns since you can find discounts up to ninety-five percent off the recommended retail price.
Another thing to look into is liquidations. In order to reacquire some liquid cash, liquidation is when stores sell extra or unwanted products in bulk. Since floor space is so important, large department stores often liquidate products that they think aren’t selling well. You might be wondering where you can buy Costco salvage items, or items from another large department store if you have an interest in selling a variety of high-quality products.
You can find the same large variety of items found in department stores when you find a wholesale source that liquidates Costco. You can then buy the appropriate items once you’ve decided what market you would like to cater to.
People often concede that their online business successes come from the knowledge of finding Costco liquidations. Since your prices will be lower than department stores, a loyal customer base will soon be built for you thanks to the happy consumers who buy the products you bought for less money than wholesale cost.
In no time, you’ll find that success in your online business comes quickly when you pay less money for your items with the help of liquidations and wholesale customer returns!
Where Can I Buy Costco Salvage
Posted by Wholesale News in Liquidations, Wholesale, Wholesale Sources on August 21st, 2009
It’s a common occurrence for big businesses to inadvertently overstock items that are unsellable either because of price, location or poor marketing. As a retailer you can take advantage of this by purchasing these excess items at incredibly low prices and then sell them to you customers. And so now you may be wondering “where can I buy Costco salvage?”
To salvage means to make something out of customer returns and overstock product. These overstock items are generally still in high quality and sealed in their original packaging, customer returns however may include damaged items.
If you are obtaining such items from a wholesale source they will have purchased such salvage in bulk from a business. Because this kind of product is considered similar to liquidation items they can be purchased at a very low cost, and it can cost almost nothing when returns are included in bulk salvage.
For a retailer questioning “where can I buy Costco salvage?” you only need to seek out the wholesale source and see what’s available. A wholesale source can’t guarantee what items and how much of an item will be available at any given time as these items do not come from the production line. When buying from the wholesale source you will find yourself buying at 10% to 20% of the usual retail cost. Often times this is significantly lower than even a usual direct from manufacturer wholesale price.
Buying cheaply allows your business to sell to customers at lower prices, thus creating more sales. In the case of salvage items it is usually determined they haven’t sold because prices are too high, this is why they can be bought at a much lower cost making it very easy to shift stock for your business.
The question of “where can I buy Costco salvage?” is a good one, Costco has a reputation of stocking high quality items and so you can be sure you’re passing that quality on to your own customers.
The wholesale source will be able to provide you with advice on the quantities of the products you wish to purchase as well as their prices. Most businesses will purchase these products in bulk as many times one is able to acquire these items at as low as a dollar each, this makes for an excellent profit margin. If you are considering starting your own business, or already have, purchasing your stock from the wholesale source is a fine method for increasing your overall profits.
Fraudulent Customer Returns
Posted by Wholesale News in Ebay, Home Based Business, Liquidations, Wholesale, Wholesale Sources, eBusiness on August 14th, 2009
If you have participated on any online site that holds auctions especially ebay, you know that terrible feeling that comes across you when you think “I have a good feeling my buyer will return my item.” This can be terrible to go through and you won’t escape it unless you complete confidence in your items. And also there are fraudulent customer returns which is also a major concern, there are plenty of customers who work the system and hurt your profits. What precautions can you take to protect yourself from something like this? The best way to avoid fraudulent customers returns is to make sure that you have complete confidence in the quality of items you are selling. The first thing you need to make sure of is that you find a quality wholesale supplier who can send out good quality products to resell on auction sites like Ebay. If you are sending out high quality products you can lose that nasty Ebay lingering annoyance of “I have a good feeling my buyer will return my item.” By doing this you will have a better feedback score from all the customers who happily puchased from you and prevent fraudulent customer returns by bad buyers.
After you find a company who does good wholesaling of products, you need to ensure your price on reselling them is correct. The main reason people make fraudulent customer returns on sites like Ebay is they find the product a lot cheaper somewhere else and want to return it so they can pay less at the other site. This is a huge deal, so you need to know that is will not happen with you. You can make sure this won’t happen by getting your products from a quality wholesale supplier. Using this service you will be paying the lowest price for your products and you will be able to resell them as low as other competitors.
On Ebay and their businesses fraudulent customer returns are a problem, so you should start placing up these counter-measures as soon as you can and create air tight return policies which will ensure customers will reconsider trying to dupe you. With high quality products you can have the confidence to tell your customers no when you know there is a problem and be able to back up your down turn.
Good feed back is a huge deal in Ebay’s world. By doing the above you are ensuring that you have done all you can to ensure the greatest feed back, this will send more reliable buyers to shop for your wholesale items, and see more happy customers with their products. While it can be difficult to balance good profits with happy customers when your selling products that are not up to par, so that is why it can be such a big deal to have a good wholesale supplier to ensure your success on eBay, if you work this out right you can be launched into millions of profits.
Exclusive Costco Customer Returns Contract Part 2: Fraud Prevention and Label Sanitation
Posted by Wholesale News in Wholesale, eBusiness on April 27th, 2009
There are a few more terms you need to familiarize yourself with if you are still interested in obtaining an exclusive contract with Costco for customer returns. In Part 1, I talked about how you simply get the contract, who you need to talk to, and what you can expect in picking up the Costco customer returns for wholesale liquidation.
Real liquidation of customer returns does not just stop with early pick up times. As a liquidator, you are responsible for protecting your supplier from return fraud with label sanitation. When the original supplier, Costco in our case, liquidates products they fully expect to never deal with them again. Here is how you make sure this happens:
Return Fraud With Liquidated Products
The last thing Costco wants to see is their salvage items finding a way back to their front end returns desk. As fraudulent as this seems to be, it’s easy to do and happens with regularity. “How does this happen?” you might ask?
- Costco sells its salvage batches of customer returns to the contracted liquidator.
- A wholesale liquidator markets the customer returned products. The customer returns are sold to either a retail store, in case lots (re-wholesale), or in a secondary retail outlet (flea market or eBay).
- The customer who buys a salvaged customer return drives to the nearest Costco and seeks a full retail refund. Even without a store receipt, the refund policy will usually give store credit or exchange for a brand new item.
A customer returned digital camera for example may end up in the customer’s hands for only $60.00. After taking it to Costco for a retail refund, the refunded amount could be as much as $199, or more. Even in store credit, this is a huge theft by return fraud for Costco, or any other retail outlet!
Prevent Return Fraud With Label Sanitation
It’s up to liquidators to stop return fraud from happening. After all, why would Costco want to sell their customer returns if it will just lead them to more returns? A simple label sanitation process will stop return fraud thieves in their tracks.
Label sanitation covers three basic areas:
- Remove all references to the original source. Sales tags and store stickers are often stuck on the products themselves.
- Remove brand names or strike through with black permanent ink if the brand is store-exclusive. Costco has a few brands exclusive to their stores, such as the Kirkland brand. Make sure you know which brand names scream “I’m from Costco!” and handle them appropriately.
- Disable the bar code or scan tag. Be careful here– only draw a black line with a permanent marker through the black and white bar code so a customer return agent cannot scan the item back in. Do not remove or disfigure the model number or serial number. Those are indications of stolen property, not liquidated products.
Tips and Tricks for Label Sanitation
Label sanitation can be a ton of extra work though. Make sure your contract with Costco, or any other retail outlet, spells out your label sanitation responsibilities. Distinguish between low-risk and high-risk customer returns. Liquidated items like food, paper goods, and household staples are not likely to be returned for personal gain to the original supplier. There are a number of red flag categories for customer return fraud, such as:
- Clothing
- electronics
- Appliances
- Jewelry/Watches
These high risk categories MUST have all labels sanitized. A regular permanent black marker will disable a bar code very easily, and it takes only a moment to do so. Clothing tags should have a black slash through the brand name to denote returned status. If the clothing tag is black, use gold or silver permanent ink instead.
Another strategy is to mark large electronics and appliances with the term “SALVAGED.” You may see this in grease pencil or some other colored marking on the back of a wholesale good in secondary markets. Be leery about agreeing to this practice on every electronic. First, try to make sure you can place such a term discreetly near the model number or other area a customer return agent would look for information during the return process. The reason is that you still need to remember you must resell these items, whether to another wholesale distributor or in another discount retail market. Customers and wholesale buyers will be reluctant to buy liquidated electronics and items with large writing on the back of a negative term like “SALVAGED.”
Bringing up effective strategies to prevent customer return fraud is another valued service you bring as a liquidator. Large retail sellers, like Costco, will be happy you bring this up as it saves them on fraudulent returns. It may take some negotiation on how to handle label sanitation, but make sure you don’t sacrifice your ability to resell the items. Finally, label sanitation shows your supplier that you are a professional player in the liquidation industry.
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