I have another email from one of our blog readers who has a few questions about becoming a liquidation merchandise Broker.

“I have been reading your blog and find it to be filled with lots of good info. I just read your story and can relate to sitting at the computer all day long. I do a lot of reading myself and I am steadily learning the ins and outs of the liquidation & surplus business. One thing I am finding difficult is learning how to broker merchandise. I don’t know if anyone will be willing to point me in the right direction, but I have lots of sources of good merchandise in large quantity’s and I would like to take advantage of it in some way. ”

Here are his questions:

1. Licenses needed?
   • No license needed other than a local business license which you can apply for at your City offices. You will need to get a “Resellers Permit” also called a Resale certificate or Resale Number. Getting a sales tax number is very easy and inexpensive. Most wholesale or liquidation companies will ask that you supply a copy of this license to prove you are not using merchandise purchased for personal use. I should also advise that if you broker wholesale merchandise to someone in the same State you reside in you must ask for a copy of their resale license and keep it on file. If your buyer does not have a resale license you have two choices, 1) Do not sell to them or 2) Charge the appropriate sales tax specific to your state.
2. Does the money actually change hands from buyer to broker to seller?
   • This is the most common way to transact as Broker. Buyer pays you (the Broker) and you then pay your source minus your markup or fee.
3. Do I have to worry about my buyers contacting my sellers?
   • This does happen and is one of the many perils of Brokering merchandise.
4. Could you point me to some good reading material?
   • I wrote an article about Brokers at the WholesalU Blog
5. I don’t believe there are too many books on this subject are there?
   • There are no books on the subject, we are currently working on a guide about brokering merchandise.

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We receive emails daily from our community here asking various questions about wholesale liquidation merchandise. If any of you have spoke with me directly or through email you should know that I am always willing to help.

I thought it would be a great idea to start publishing a few of the questions we receive. We have a individual here today who purchased our guide Liquidation Sources Revealed and has emailed a couple of questions:

“Hello, your Guide Liquidation Sources revealed contains valuable information, but I have a few more questions for you. I would greatly appreciate it if you could answer them:”

Q -What about other department stores like Ashley furniture, catalog sales….Where I can find their liquidation center?

A - We routinely publish direct contact information for various stores here on the blog. Our last published direct contact source for furniture was Seventh Avenue. We have also published articles which will show you how to find direct contacts yourself.

Q - You suggest buyers who don’t have forklift to have their shipments left at the nearest freight terminal to their locations, doesn’t this method add more cost to the item especially if the terminal is not really close, it is like paying the shipping twice, any other suggestions?

A - It really depends on the quantity of merchandise you have purchased and as you stated the distance to the nearest terminal. There are freight terminals literally all over the United States and probably one close to your location. if you are buying 2-3 pallets it might be possible to load the merchandise into a full size truck and trailer for the “Last leg” of the trip to your destination. I know when I started buying pallets I would travel 2-3 hours with my Ford Pickup and rented a U-haul trailer. Again, the freight terminal suggestion avoids the residential fee and liftgate fee for those who do not have a forklift. The other idea would be to rent a forklift for a 1/2 day to unload your pallets. Remember, if your pallets consist of boxes stacked you can unload the boxes one at a time from the freight truck. 30-40 boxes on one pallet can be off loaded within 10-15 minutes with the help of a friend.

Q - I would appreciate also if you can give me some tips of how to resell these liquidation as wholesale online and offline.

A - This is a broad question to answer, but we have sold liquidation merchandise through Ebay, through our retail store and actually through classified adds in our local newspaper. We have been very successful in renting warehouse space for 2-3 days at a time and holding what we call “Event Sales” to the public. We would advertise major department store liquidation merchandise and people would line up to buy. We would average $3,000 - $4,000 a day in sales with this method

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