Running a departmental store is not an easy task. You need to manage your customers, increase sales, take care of the balance sheets, but the most important area that you need to keep an eye on is the inventory you maintain to run your store smoothly. Products are often changing, so is the customer's choice, thus you have to make sure that you have the latest products stock optimized to satisfy the consumers. Still, most of the time, at the end of the month, or season, some of the excess products gets stockpiled at the store's warehouse. Getting rid of them might seem difficult at times, but if you plan properly, you can find quite a few ways to clear all these items. The most effective 5 ways to sell clearance items from department stores can be listed as follows.

1. Offer a Discount
Some product may gradually lose its appeal to customers with time as newer and latest version of the products are released. Identify those slow moving stocks and offer them at a discounted prize. People are generally more trusting towards products they have already used. It will definitely increase the potential selling rate of those items, specially at a reduced price. You may even find an increase in total footfalls, thus helping to clear your stock.

Even once super hot brands such as Ecko or Rocawear are no longer in great demand. If you notice that some of the wholesale clothing that you purchased is starting to move slowly, well then it's time to discount it.

2. Offer a free product
This is another useful technique that the store owners put to use to get rid of the excess materials. You can always offer a free product combo on any other items bought by the customers. "Buy one, get one" techniques have been known to increase the overall sales rate of any store. It helps you to move your excess materials faster and remain updated, according to the needs of the customers.

Department stores such as Macy's have implemented this strategy to great effect.

3. Provide a combo offer
This is a real clever way to clear your extra products. You can offer similar types of products bundled together at a reduced price than the total price of the individual items. As an example, you might consider bundling a soap, body wash and shampoo together that comes at a cheaper price than if the same items are bought separately. People generally buys certain products in sets, so they will latch on to any opportunity to buy the ones with an bundled offer.

For example, you can offer a package deal that includes a Calvin Klein dress and a matching pair of Nine West shoes.

4. Alternate market
Sometimes, placement and stacking of certain products affect its sales rates too. If you find a lesser number of takers for the products you sell in these cases, you can always put the unsold items in an online marketplace. Also, you may consider selling these products to some other retailer. You can also re-stack the excess items to another location in your store where the visibility would increase. Proper highlighting of a certain stocks could increase your sales manifold.

Make sure also that the display looks professional and makes the merchandise appealing. I remember I once had pairs of Levi's jeans in my closeout warehouse, but because they were not presented properly people didn't look at them. Once I displayed them properly my wholesale buyers bought them up almost immediately.

5. Charity or Donations
You can donate some of the products as donations to the downtrodden people and charity homes. This will help you to clear out your inventory. Additionally, this could help you to save some tax as well. It will also increase your reputation as a responsible citizen, thus improving your customer's trust, which in turn will increase the sale of other excess items.

I have donated various items from my wholesale business, from remote control toy cars to brand name women's clothing, to charities such as Ohel Children's Homes and Family Services, and Tomche Shabbos.