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 lawn mower.
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 Grandpa’s spilled coffee.
Or it just could happen that the retailer had problems in their warehouse and maybe the fork lift 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 everything from Beauty Supplies, to Consumer Electronics, to toys and common household items. Everything from A to Z can be found at an incredible discount. 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!
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 there may not always be a valid warranty so you should be sure to verify that the items being purchased have a warranty that will be honored by the manufacture. All one has to do is ask for some serial numbers of the items from the pallet and then they can contact the manufacturer and verify that a warranty still exists.
The purchase of such items also is a no go back transaction, so its important to make sure that the company who is offering the item has a decent reputation. Always Google around, and check to see if there are any complaints about that particular company. In general by paying a little attention to details, an online retailer can find excellent deals and save a lot of money on popular consumer products!
