Sales Channels For Your Overstock Merchandise

Having multiple sales channels at your disposal can help you sell all of your overstock merchandise.

Whether you are a retailer who has accumulated difficult to sell merchandise, or you are a wholesaler

who has bought more inventory that you can sell to your customers, having additional sales channels

can help you move merchandise.

While you might be tempted to simply lower the price of your overstock products until your current customers

purchase them, this approach is not an emotionally intelligent strategy. If you sell your items at a super low

price to your current customers, they will resent that in the past they paid higher prices for those same items. In addition,

when you dramatically lower your prices, you are creating a new price point reality. The next time that your

customers shop by you, they will expect those same low prices.

The most strategic way to sell overstock products is by utilizing channels that enable you to dispose of your merchandise 

to buyers outside of your regular customer base.

You can choose to make a deal with certain select current customers, but if you do so, you will need to carefully and clearly

explain why this sale is a one time event. Otherwise, your customers will try to obtain similar prices on an ongoing basis. 

An additional benefit to utilizing other sales channels, is that by using additional sales channels you can connect with

customers that you ordinarily might not have reached. Once you connect with a new buyer for your excess products,

you can continue to develop a business relationship with her by calling upon her whenever you have merchandise that you

need to liquidate.

Below are sales channels that you can use to move your overstock inventory:

eBay. You can create wholesale listings in order to sell your items in bulk.

Craigslist. You can advertise for free. Simply create an ad, upload some pictures, and monitor the responses.

Cold call retailers and wholesalers that carry the same products that you sell. You would offer your products at below the regular wholesale prices, since retailers and wholesalers could otherwise just buy your items from their regular suppliers at the regular wholesale prices.

You can donate your merchandise to a charity or a non profit organization. I have donated overstock merchandise to Ohel, Sephardic Bikur Cholim, and to Tomche Shabbos.

Rent a pop up location. If you have enough inventory, and the budget, you can rent a temporary location through you which can sell your items.

Rent a flea market spot, or hire someone, to sell your merchandise at your local flea market or swap meet.

Hire an auctioneer to auction off your unsold items. You will need to pay to advertise the auction, and cover the cost of the auctioneer's employees. You will also have to pay a seller's premium of 10% of the sales proceeds.Two popular auctioneers in New York are David Maltz from maltzauctions.com, and Elliot Millman from eliotmillmanauctioneer.com