Are you making money buying and reselling closeouts? Are you buying customer returned merchandise? I can tell you from my experience that I have made most of my big profits from selling at a wholesale level. Selling to flea markets vendors, Ebay sellers and small retail store owners. I have extensive experience with Apparel and general merchandise. I have bought probably 40-50 truckloads and am very proud of the fact that I have sold well over a half a million pieces of apparel to mostly Ebay resellers.

I will tell you that in my opinion the closeout apparel market is “Flooded”. Everyone is reselling shelf pulls and everyone wants to source the big “Name Brands”. When I started out back in 2001 the “Big Boxes”  would not sell to just anyone. In order to buy apparel of shelf pulls from this huge retail chain you had to fork over at minimum $15,000 to $30,000 for a what they would call a “Job Lot” (4-8 pallets).

I guess due to slow sales Federated realized that their closeouts were not moving quick enough. They also realized that if Mr Smith bought a truckload today, he was not becoming a repeat buyer. Why?

Federated started selling in smaller lots and pallets which really hurt the market. Due to smaller lots and pallets suddenly this merchandise was touchable by many more buyers. Your average homemaker now could muster up $1,000 – $3,000 and start her own online Ebay business selling last seasons apparel with big name brands like BCBG, Polo, Tommy Hilfiger Etc.

Federated’s move to sell to the “Smaller” buyer caused a flooding of the closeout apparel market. It also squeezed out the liquidators who were buying $15,000 loads and reselling them in 50-100 piece lots. Just like with the large truckload buyers who would buy once, even the smaller buyers now who could afford to buy from Federated were not coming back?

Can money really be made reselling this shelf pull apparel? In your opinion is the market flooded? Are there too many Ebay sellers with the same merchandise?

So, the question goes out……

What is your experience?

Do you Sell on eBay?