A little known way for online retailers to get handbags at below wholesale prices is by buying store return pallets from department stores.

Ever wonder what happens to those not so desired birthday presents that get returned to the store?

Many stores offer a money back guarantee, as long as the item being returned is still in one piece and hasn't been run over by a lawnmower.

Other stores, such as department stores, will even take back damaged handbags since they want to keep a relationship with their customers.

From my experience handbags are returned for various reasons, such as torn material, buyer's remorse, and style preferences.

Once an item leaves the store, a retailer can no longer technically sell it as new, especially when the original packaging has been slightly damaged, or has bent corners, or is a little smudged from grandmother's spilled coffee.

Or it just could happen that the retailer had problems in their warehouse and maybe the forklift driver knocked over a few pallets of merchandise.

These items are commonly referred to as "Customer Returned", "Open Box", "Slightly damaged", or "Semi-new" products, which other than maybe a few minor bumps and bruises to the packaging or product housing, work 100% as the brand new unit.

The difference is, they can be acquired at the fraction of the cost of the new item, and even far less than the original wholesale purchase price.

There are many sellers of store return handbag pallets. Although the price per bag can be very low, the catch is you cannot buy just one item, you have to take the whole lot. If you are an online retailer who sells on eBay or Amazon or you have your own online store, then buying returned pallet items can be very beneficial to your bottom line.

There are many companies that dedicate to buying these pallets of "Customer Returned" or "Slightly cosmetically damaged" products and then offering them for resale to the public with huge discounts. When searching for such great deals, one should look for "Pallets of returned customer items", "Liquidation items", "Wholesale damaged packing items", "Opened Box", or "Restocked merchandise". There are many sites that also will sell partial pallets, and offer a minimum purchase amount starting as low as 50 dollars!

Just keep in mind that unless you can inspect the contents of the pallet, you will have no idea what the condition of the pocketbook will be like.

In the online retail world, the competition is fierce, so any advantage that one retailer can gain over another is certainly worth looking into, especially if it means increasing sales, and profits and lowering expenses!

The only drawbacks with buying in this fashion is that you will either have to fix the damaged zippers or loose straps, or have customers that will be willing to buy Coach or Michael Kors damaged handbags as is. You should definitely look at the manifest for the pallet so that you can at least ascertain that you will be receiving high end designer and brand name bags. 

Although a shopper might be willing to purchase a slightly damaged Coach handbag at a decent discount, the shopper will probably not be willing to purchase a cheap fashion damaged bag at any price.

The purchase of such pallets are done as is, so it's important to make sure that the company who is offering the item has a decent reputation. You can always ask for references from a wholesale supplier, as well as visit their warehouse if possible.

When purchasing pallets you should know where the merchandise originally originated from, this way you can have a decent idea of what type of merchandise to expect.

A pallet of handbags from Macy's will generally have a higher quality of bags than a pallet from Sears.

Also depending on where the pallet originated from you will know what kind of brands to expect, if any.