While it is relatively easy to use the Internet in order to find Chinese suppliers, it is imperative that you do adequate research and due diligence before placing an order. The truth is that more than a few eager buyers have jumped into a sales deal in the past for a legitimate sounding transaction, only to be ripped off by a shady supplier or con artist. Unfortunately, there is oftentimes little recourse for the buyer in these situations.

Perhaps the most popular website used to find Chinese manufacturers is Alibaba.com. In fact, Alibaba has products from all over the world, so you can use them to find all kind of international suppliers. Of course, the site is not free of fraud, so it is up to you to use the tools Alibaba supply along with your own commonsense and discretion when choosing who to do business with. Whenever possible, it is recommended to start with an order of samples in order to gauge product quality as well as create a base relationship with the supplier.

Another site that is frequently used to find reputable Chinese suppliers is EC21. EC21 offers a layer of protection by performing credit checks on the companies listed, and ensuring that they are registered businesses.  There may of course be other similar websites, but these (Alibaba and Ec21) are two of the biggest and the ones I would recommend to start with.

I would certainly not recommended starting out with a large order when dealing with a supplier you do not have experience with. A few small orders will allow you to ensure you are dealing with a reputable company that meets your quality requirements. After this is established you can negotiate better rates for larger orders. Also stay away from listings for commonly counterfeit goods such as brand name handbags, as you will almost certainly end up with illegal items.

Even if you only go from show to show, chances are you will revisit some of the places you have been before, especially those that you experienced success at. Chances are also pretty good that some of the customers that visited last time, will be there again. This creates a unique opportunity to brand your wholesale merchandise. For example, maybe you plan to sell vacuum cleaners at each show. If you want to create a successful brand for your wholesale merchandise you will not only focus on brand names such as Hoover, but also make sure they are in good working condition before selling them. This effort relates into more people trusting your business, and thus becomes a powerful part of your brand.

Be careful however, as it can be quite easy to ruin your brand. All it takes is one highly defective product and you might find that your sales begin to reduce drastically. In order to make sure this does not happen, it is vitally important that you make sure each and every product you sell is offered in the condition you advertise. If you claim something works and then the customer brings it home and it doesn’t, word could spread quickly (especially in smaller towns) and cause you a lack of sales at future shows.

For many buyers, the most common factor for making such product selections is the amount of money they have. Obviously low end items can be purchased for less while high end items will cost more. If you have the capital, you might be leaning towards buying high end items. Likewise, if you are strapped for cash, you might be leaning toward the more affordable products. However, the truth is that neither approach may be ideal because what matters more than the money available is knowing what will and will not sell.

Another factor for achieving success in the wholesale industry is understanding the market you plan to operate in. If you are going to run a flea market business, then having a bunch of high dollar items will probably not net you much profit, whereas selling several pallets of low cost items could. The same is true for using a platform like eBay where moving a couple of high dollar items is easier and generally more profitable than selling dozens of small dollar goods.

When it comes to reselling products online, I recommend signing up with Doba.com, so that you can try out some products without needing to buy huge lots of them. This will give you a good feel for what it’s like to sell products at different price points without taking on much risk.

In the end, there is a lot of money to be made in the wholesale market, but anyone who wants to achieve more than temporary success will take time to study the market they intend to target. Through careful study and an application of sound business principles you are highly likely to come out a winner in the low end/high end game of wholesaling.

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.

The summer season is near and ladies apparel should sell well. My only concern is the ability to select the styles that will sell in my targeted market. Kentucky women have different needs and tastes than the ladies in California or Boston. Choosing the wrong fashions could prove to be costly financially and in time wasted. How do you resolve this challenge? Thank you for your help.

My Response

Hello, and thank you for your compliment regarding our guide. I can tell you that my wife and I have held retail liquidation sales and experienced a great deal of success. I am not familiar with your market, but our sales were held in a smaller bedroom community sandwiched between to cities with a combined population of about 170,000 people. Our liquidation sales were very fun and profitable as we created a true sense of excitement and a feeling of urgency that caused people to spend without much thought.

A liquidation Event Sale is simply a one day offering of merchandise that is merchandised for a preset period of time…and then the doors are closed! Any kind of inventory can be retailed in this manor, but apparel worked the best for our sales.

Now we come to your real question, “how to select styles that will sell in your target market”?

My answer? Are you ready for this…….You don’t. Honestly, if you are buying wholesale liquidation pallets of apparel, you have no choice as to styles/sizes or brands. If your intent is to chose styles you should open up a 6-7 day per week retail clothing store.

A liquidation sale works with a great assortment of styles and brands because your clientele will not be shopping [necessarily] for anything in particular – they will buy because of the great deals found. Again, this is where the impulse purchasing factors in.

Having stated the above, I will say that in our retail liquidation sales, I purchased some stock lots of apparel from traditional wholesalers. This stock was hard to sell as I had to price it based upon current retail pricing. This did not work as people who came to our sales wanted to buy clothing at 80-90% of retail.

We were highly successful sticking to one price point per sale, meaning everything was $5 or $8. This shadowed the concept similar to the dollar store we are all familiar with. There was no need for our customer base to worry about pricing, they simply would count the number of items in their arms or cart and then multiply by the price point we were using that particular day. When you take away a need to put much thought into how much customers are spending…you have just created what I call a buying frenzy. Cha Ching!

Our event sales caused panic and urgency; when our doors opened lines of people streamed into our warehouse with one thought in mind…buy and buy quickly before the doors closed again!

While you may not be able to order specific styles and sizes for your event sale, you can purchase liquidation pallets of clothing from specific department stores and most of the time you will be able to ascertain what season you are buying.

In the coming week I will post an audio commentary about retail “Event Sales” as there is much more to consider when trying to put one together. I truly believe this is one Niche area that can prove to be very successful no matter where you are located. You may decide to fill a store front with apparel or other merchandise for your own liquidation Event Sale, but remember… excitement and urgency is really what you will be selling!

Related Posts

Warehouse or Retail Liquidation Event Sale
Holding A Retail Liquidation Sale – Event Sale

But where do you find this liquidation merchandise? You can buy pallets and truckloads of merchandise from wholesale liquidators or simply buy direct from the original retailer who is liquidating excess, unwanted stock.

I should also mention that you can buy liquidation merchandise from Brokers. A liquidation broker is someone who finds liquidated merchandise and then connects that excess inventory with a buyer. The broker then charges a markup per item or commission on your total purchase price.

I probably do not have to tell you that buying liquidated pallets and truckloads direct from the source is the best way to purchase if you are looking for the lowest cost. Dealing directly with an inventory source removes the middleman (broker) and allows you to keep an inflated markup or commission in your own pocket.

Let me describe two categories of liquidation merchandise:

Customer Returns: Items that have been returned to the original store or catalog company by the end consumer. There are many reasons an item might be returned including: items damaged in transit, parts missing, the wrong color, the item didn’t match the description or impulse purchasing (spending without thinking).

Shelf Pulls: Items that have been on display at a retail store and then pulled off of the shelf for various reasons including: end of seasons model, new styles available, too many of one line item, etc.

Some tv’s, stereos, DVD players, digital cameras and the like are returned due to impulse purchasing. What happens to the all of the customer returns? What if a portion of the salvage returns are damaged?

Big box retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, Kmart, Costco, Sams Club and Target will liquidate customer returned electronics. By liquidate I mean re-wholesale to smaller retailers and eBay auction sellers.

Customer returned electronics are placed on pallets and shipped by the truckload to tech savvy entrepreneurs who are reaping the benefits of reselling top name brands like Sony, JVC, Sanyo, Toshiba, Alpine, Panasonic and other brands.

Often referred to as salvage electronics, many of the items will be broken or missing pieces, but on occasion you can find open box and floor model units to resell. If you are looking to resell electronics and you have the ability to fix and/or recondition items, buying customer returned electronics might just offer you small business excellent profit potential!

Shelf Pull Handbags

If you are looking to buy shelf pull handbags at liquidation pricing make sure you are buying direct from the original retail source. This will guarantee authenticity and give you the profit margin your business needs to be competitive.

There are a great number of eBay resellers who scramble to and from retail outlets to try and buy handbags at clearance pricing. The intent is to buy on clearance and then resell on eBay. While this is a viable way to amass inventory…it is exhausting.

Large big-box stores will liquidate shelf pull handbags at pricing that will allow the small reseller to realize a decent profit. You have two choices when buying liquidated handbags:

Buy handbags from a wholesale liquidator – Pay a higher per handbag price, but you can typically purchase in smaller quantities to get your business started.

Buy handbags direct from the source – Pay the lowest cost per handbag, but you must purchase in larger quantities. Buying direct will give you more profit potential, but minimum purchases are often $8,000 – $15,000 in a single purchase.

Everyone knows that popular name brands sell really well on eBay and when you buy wholesale shelf pull clothing you can find brands like DKNY, Calvin Klein, Nine West, Jones of New York, Baby Phat, L.E.I, Angels, Overdrive, Mudd, INC, E.C.I New York, Cable & Gauge, Joseph A., Vanilla Sugar, August Silk, XOXO, BCBG and many more.

Shelf pull apparel is simply clothing that spent some time on a rack or shelf of a retail store and was “pulled” off the floor for various reasons. Usually articles of apparel are pulled from the retailers shelf due to end of season left overs or maybe too many of one particular style. Once pulled from the sales floor this apparel is placed into a pallet and then resold to small store owners, flea market vendors and of course, eBay sellers.

Some retail big box stores have their own liquidation department that is in charge of reselling wholesale pallets and truckloads of this merchandise way below wholesale. Other retailers will use a third party reclamation center to process and resell all excess inventory. Either way buying from the direct source, ie. the store or the contracted liquidator is the best way to purchase this apparel.

Shelf Pull apparel should be considered retail ready with a small percentage of each pallet or truckload damaged. Usually damages are simply due to handling in the warehouse. It is not uncommon to find at least 3-5% minimal damages when buying this category of Liquidated merchandise.