If so, one of our readers has recommended Great Lakes Auction Consignment, based in Michigan. Molly said that she has found them a better source for merchandise than liquidation.com, and that she particularly likes the ability to buy smaller quantities than an entire pallet.

And I’m guessing that she likes the way Great Lakes Auction Consignment classifies lots into new, returned or damaged items … if her comment that she doesn’t want to buy a whole pallet of damaged coffee makers is anything to go by!

I haven’t used this company myself, but I’m always on the lookout for sources of wholesale goods to share. So I thought I would check out what they offer and summarise some of it on this page to save you some time and research effort. As always, please do your own due diligence and review of any supplier. Great Lakes Auction Consignment (from now on, I’ll refer to them as GLAC) encourages potential buyers to visit or call them, which I think is a good sign.

So here’s what I found out:

• All auctions start at a penny and have no reserve.
• the company sells store returns and shelf pulls from major retailers
• The catalogue for the current weekly auction is available online. I noticed that this week’s auction has a wide variety of merchandise, but includes quite a few lots of returned and closeout bedding (sheet sets, pillows, blankets, comforter sets and airbeds) and lamps. There’s also sporting goods, electronics, toys and aquarium supplies … I’ve listed a sample of the lots currently available at the end of this page so you can get a quick idea of the type of goods available.
• Bids can be made online or in person.
• The company prefers that goods are collected in person as a local pick-up. Buyers outside the state of Michigan can arrange to have items shipped through PakMail
• Goods are classified as new, returned or damaged, with definitions of each category on the GLAC website. The company warns that damaged goods are for experienced buyers only, as some items may not be repairable. Buying only new goods obviously overcomes this problem. However, you may remember that in the past we’ve advised that returned items can sometimes be better … at least you know it wasn’t some dreadfully unpopular product that didn’t sell … with returned goods, a customer somewhere wanted it enough to buy it in the first place!
• GLAC sells wholesale quantity lots to the public, so you don’t need to be a licenced wholesale buyer to participate in their auctions. You just need a valid credit card for bidding approval.

Great Lakes Auction Consignment seems like a good source for small lots of merchandise. They do sell pallets and truckloads of returned and salvaged merchandise too, if you want to buy in bulk.

Here’s a list of a few of the lots available for sale in this week’s auction by Great Lakes Auction Consignment to give you a flavor of what’s available without having to review the entire auction yourself.

(Tip: I find it useful to print out auction catalogs so that I can quickly circle items I’m interested in … and then go back to the online catalogue for a closer look at any photos etc. Copying and pasting into a Word document and then editing can also be a good way to narrow down the list if you are only interested in sporting goods or bedding or some other category of item).

I said there was some return and closeout bedding this week, like the following lots:

Lot# 3068G High Bid: $11.00
Returned Bed And Bath. Quantity 17. Mainstays Jumbo Pillow, 13 Sheet Sets, Plush Pillow, Wool Blanket.

Lot# 3640H High Bid: $4.25
Returned Memory Foam Pillow. Return label stated “site to store transfer”. Item does appear to have been opened.

Lot# 3644H High Bid: $8.50
Returned Ozark Trail Queen Airbed Kit. Package Damage. Functionality Unknown.

Lot# 3646H High Bid: $1.25
Returned Better Homes And Gardens Tufted Full Comforter Set. Open Box Item.

Other sample lots available include:

Lot# 3069G High Bid: $6.50
Automotive Returns. Quantity 27. 5 Motor Car Seat Massage Cushion. Beaded Car Seat Massage Cusion, Exhaust Cover, Mechanix Wear Gloves, Oil Filter, Car Cup Holders, And Other Assorted Automotive Items.

Lot# 3065G High Bid: $0.25
General Merchandise Returns. Quantity 10. Lot Inludes Allerease Allergy And Asthma Durable Pillow Protector, (50) 12″ Disposable Decorating Bags, Flatware Set, All In One Adapter Plug, International Converter Set, large Dog Harness, Coffee Thermos, Digital Luggage Scale, 20″ Expandable Duffle Bag, And Hanging Storage Pouch.

Lot# 2745C High Bid: $17.00
Home Office Returns. Quantity 13. MSRP $381.87. Table Lamp (7) $29.99, Floor Lamp (2) $49.99, Floor Lamp (2) $29.99, Lamp Shades (2) $5.99.

Lot# 2741B High Bid: $6.50
Kitchen Returns. Quantity 5. MSRP $182.96. Spin Mop $29.99, Black And Decker Coffee Maker $43.00, Mainstays 18 Piece Cookware Set $49.99, 12 Piece Dinnerware Set $29.99, 12 Piece Glass Coolers $29.99.

Lot# 2651F High Bid: $7.50
Sporting Goods Returns. Quantity 6. MSRP $141.72
Golds Gym 10 Pound Pair Adjustable Ankle/Wrist Weights (2) $24.99, 40 Pound Vinyl Dumbell Set %59.99, Dumbell Handle $9.99, Wrist/Forearm Developer $14.99, 5 Pound Neoprene Dumbell $6.77.

Lot# 2654A High Bid: $0.25
Electronics Returns. Quantity 11. MSRP $246.89
Body Glove Smooth Case For Droid Incredible $29.99, ONN Universal Romote (4) 19.99, Plantronics M100 Bluetooth Headset $69.99, Trexta Ipod Touch Basketball Case $29.99, Ifrogz Earpollution Plugz $19.99, Belkin 6 Foot USB 2.0 Printer Cable (2) $4.99, Belkin 10 Foot USB 2.0 Printer Cable $6.99.

Good luck, and I’d love to hear about any reader experiences with this company.

By purchasing shelf-pull or overstock items, you will be able to offer items that are not generally found in other dollar stores. This is a truly great angle that you can use to differentiate your business, and get people shopping at your location and spreading the word!

While you may not be able to consistently offer the same selection of liquidation merchandise, you can help build a reputation for your store as a place that has limited time offers on discounted goods that cannot be found so affordably anywhere else. It’s a great way to get people to keep coming to your store, checking to see what you’ll offer next. Also, as is typical in dollar stores, once you have them through the door, they’re likely to find something relevant to them and buy it.

This approach also provides a great opportunity for generating big profits by purchasing liquidation seasonal goods off-season, and then keeping them until the market is hot again. Purchasing small seasonal items that will not cost much in storage is a way to try this out if you are on a smaller budget. For example, many Christmas ornaments/decorations that are not large in size can be bought cheaply after the Christmas season and held until next November when they will be popular again. This is of course true for items geared towards Halloween, Valentines Day and basically any holiday that the mainstream public decorates or buys goods for.

Also, you can purchase general below wholesale dollar store merchandise through a variety of closeout companies as well. There are several mentioned in our guide, Wholesale Liquidations Exposed.

Of course, if you’re purchasing items for a dollar store, you have to make sure you know exactly what you’re getting, as people will expect their goods to be in good condition. Stay away from salvage goods, and stick to overstocks, shelf pulls and other good quality closeouts. Communicate with your source so that you know exactly what to expect. As always, you may want to consider a few small purchases until you trust that the goods you will be receiving are of the nature you require.

One of the features I thought to be impressive is the ability to view all sellers in what the site calls the Sellers Directory. When I clicked on this link I was taken to a page which listed sellers based upon their category, ie retailers, liquidators, manufacturers, importers etc.

One thing I was a little concerned about was the fact that a lot of merchandise listed has been on the site for sometime, in fact I noticed some offers with dates as far back as early 2009. Anyway, this site seems to be another source for wholesale liquidation merchandise. Take a look and tell me what your thoughts are.

I am thinking about exporting shelf pull apparel and designer bags, belts, wallets outside of the USA. I would like this merchandise to be new with tags and I would like to select brands. I am interested in Guess, Coach, Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger and Victoria Secrets. The wholesalers that I have talked to only offer mixed merchandise and of course it is not as cheap as buying directly from the department store.

Pricing is very important to my business. In my country there are many wholesalers that sell similar merchandise for very little, and for me to enter that market I have to have similar pricing or even better prices. I know that my competitors have to be buying from direct sources. I have spent hours on internet, but unfortunately I cannot find information I need for my exporting business.

Is is possible to buy directly from a store selecting only the brands I am interested in? Can you explain what is the Federated merchandise that everybody is talking about?

The best answer…yes, and no. Just about every department store that liquidates stock is interested in one thing…moving merchandise as quickly as possible. To do this items are typically sorted into a few categories and then resold at low pricing. For example, In the apparel category you might find clothing, accessories and jewelry. It is best to ask what types of items you might find prior to making a purchase in any one category.

You can read about the Federated chain of department stores HERE. When most liquidation buyers refer to Federated they are talking about Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s merchandise.

As far as purchasing quantities of a certain brand name, the liquidation department of Federated will at times sell brand specific lots. Stock is not available ongoing and you must act quickly when a pallet becomes available. I know historically one of the brand specific lots a liquidation buyer could acquire was Tommy Hilfiger.

West Coast off-price wholesaler, DLM is one of the few companies that will sell liquidation lots of your chosen brand name. They will even take your request for specific size ranges! Give them a call to see how they can help your business.

I immediately thought this might be the end as I have noticed a decline in the maintenance of the site over the last few months. Dead end links and a lack of surplus offers started to become the norm. I often wondered if the value of this directory was even worth the browser bookmark anymore?

I have close ties to this directory, or an association as members call it; back from 2002 until 2004 I was an acting member. I advertised on the site and the leads that I received from ready and willing buyers were welcomed. During my participation I appreciated the traffic that was driven to the offers that I had posted on the Surplus.net website.

But then something happened. It seemed as though there was a membership push of some sort and all members were told that there was going to be a membership split. Those that had active memberships would be given and “extra” membership to go out and peddle.

At first I thought this was a great idea allowing every active member to make some money by bringing other dealers in, but what happened next was what I felt started the decline of this directory. This is speculation, but I really feel as though “extra” or “split” memberships were sold at a very discounted rate. This brought to the table a bunch of dealers that could not have afforded a membership before at $3500 per pop.

To me the advertised price of a membership back then was steep, but it did keep out those that were just dabbling in the Surplus trade. So, with the discounted memberships came a flood of “overnight” Brokers and even some eBay sellers who were just trying to unload extra stock.

Membership numbers were up, but quality of dealers participating was down. The directory become too competitive as there was an influx of brokers, with no overhead, peddling too many low-ball offers. Many of the brokers who were now members of this website were trying to under cut everyone. Hey, don’t get me wrong competition is great, but a low price means absolutely nothing if the goods are not delivered or misrepresented altogether, right? This type of trading comprised the credibility of the directory.

I talked with a few of the members who had been there for a while and they agreed with me about the move to bring anyone and everyone on as a directory member. The community started to lose its value. I moved on and left the directory and I know of at least two others who hung on and tried to sell there memberships without much luck. I have a friend today who went through two of the membership splits. He now has a few memberships to resell, but without membership value…does he really have any equity in his extra memberships?

Now, having said the above I do want to be fair and mention that there have been active members at Surplus.net who have been there for years. I would almost consider these dealers to be founders as they run very reputable surplus merchandise companies. After searching through the directory back in early September I came across dozens of blank or dead-end pages. Dealers with no listings.

What is the fate of Surplus.net? Will it come back online….If I had to guess I would say there is a great chance this directory will be back. On the Surplus.cc forum a member posted the site is down due to a malicious attack. It was disclosed that someone redirected the Surplus.net urls and due to this hack the site is down for maintenance and rebuilding. I guess we will all have to wait for now and see how this plays out. Maybe this could become an opportunity to “clean house”?

What experience do you have with Surplus.net as either a member or just a surplus merchandise buyer?

Where do these preassembled pallets come from and how can you purchase a few for your store? Today I want to feature a closeout wholesaler who has been supplying discount and dollar stores for over 20 years. This company, based out of Carson California, is called Kole Imports.

Kole Imports has grown each year providing expert store planning and building strong “supplier – customer” relationships. Check out their website and be sure to sign up to view wholesale pricing. As a closeout wholesaler, Kole Imports offers several categories of merchandise and has created an out of the box point of sale program they call Promo Pallets.

They have a dedicated website that offers nothing but pallets of pre-merchandised inventory and you can visit this site at Promopallets.com.

After visiting the website I was surprised to find out they offer free freight for orders over $1,000. This does not appear to be a limited promotion, so retailers can base total landed cost on website pricing! This is a great example of a strong supplier commitment to each and every valued customer.

What happens when large warehouses filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory catch fire? If properly insured the company that owns the inventory will be indemnified for the loss. Once a settlement is reached for the insured, the damaged inventory will become property of the insurance company that just wrote a large claim check.

Not all claims result in a total loss…sometimes just a portion of insured inventory is deemed a total loss.

The remaining “smoke damaged” merchandise can often be salvaged (cleaned, repaired, repackaged, etc) by somebody. The insurance company, who now retains title to said merchandise, will often utilize a third party to auction off the assets in an attempt to offset any claim payment made. Here are a few examples of claims that could result in an insurance payout and subsequent sale of salvaged consumer inventory:

1. Partial fire losses
2. Smoke damage from an adjacent fire (building owned by someone else)
3. Water damage that affects a portion of merchandise in a warehouse.
4. Merchandise involved in a trucking accident during transit
5. Merchandise that is labeled incorrectly (error found after packaging 50,000 units)
6. Theft Claims (merchandise stolen, claim paid and then merchandise recovered months later)

Purchasing insurance salvaged merchandise might be a viable option for your business. You may need to take a little risk, but if you are buying liquidated customer returns you already understand there could be a portion of your purchase that cannot be resold. In addition you there might be some work involved with cleaning, repairing or repackaging items for resell.

One of the best auction websites for insurance salvaged merchandise is Salvagesale.com. Most of the assets auctioned off tend to be larger industrial equipment pieces, but there are at least 1 or 2 auctions per week of retail inventory (consumer merchandise). Make sure to bookmark this website and check back often…you just might find a goldmine!

Many of the suppliers found in this magazine are leaders in their prospective field. Over the years I have found distributors for high end apparel, cosmetics, shoes, home décor, furniture, jewelry, tools, general merchandise and many other categories.

The May issue offers an excellent article about improving order fulfillment, while lowering costs in the process. Each issue is packed with relevant articles that touch on several areas of retailing. I learn something new each month.

In addition Web Wholesaler writes about “Spotlight Suppliers” and offers extensive information about wholesale trade shows. If you are looking for new sources for inventory you should take up the offer for a FREE Subscription.

There are several liquidators who advertise on a regular basis in WebWholesaler offering subscriber only discounts…What are you waiting for!

I have found that these loads have a great resell value for eBay. I thought I would show our readers here at the blog the actual manifest from the load I just purchased…it is below. I paid $1,500.75 for the entire lot below and I am hoping to more than double my investment by reselling on eBay and through our retail discount store.

I bought the following load, which was fully manifested, from the source found in my guide….Liquidation Secrets. Loads of wholesale and customer returned video games can also be purchased from Doba.com.

Wholesale Video Games

Shoenet offers a wide selection of branded and non-branded shoes for retail stores, eBay sellers and exporters. Before diving fully into this website, please visit the “New Buyers” web page to checkout information about first time purchases and shipping options. Shoenet distributes a wide variety of shoes from the casual flip flops to career and dressy styles. There is also a large selection of athletic and tennis shoes available.

Not only can you chose to buy cased packed shoes in original manufacturer sizing, but you also have the ability to chose by individual style as Shoenet offers a complete description of each inventory item.

Shoenet also sells higher end designer shelf pull shoes by the pallet offering a complete manifest (inventory breakdown) of each lot available. In reviewing current pallets I noted shoes are sold ranging from a low of $11 per pair up to $17, which is competitive with other liquidation offers I have come across while researching shelf pull shoe pallets.

Name brand shoe pallets

Wholesale Pallets currently available through Shoenet offer brands like Coach, Michael Kors, Kensie, Steve Madden, Nine West, Jessica Simpson, Skechers, Converse, Casadei, Rocket Dog, Kenneth Cole and others.

If you are an exporter, Shoenet advertises the ability to assemble 20-40 foot containers of new shoes in several price points.

Please complete your due diligence research before buying from this wholesaler / liquidator. I have no first hand experience buying from Shoenet, but they look to be a formidable source for small and large lots of shoes. If you have purchased from this company, please offer feedback in the comment section of this post.