The pandemic has impacted tradition shops, retailers and e-commerce businesses to such an extent that 'normality' will never truly return. If you couple this with the increasing cost for pretty much everything, the entire supply chain, from manufacturers to retailers, have been affected. This impact means that business closures are high and increasing and, with this, it means there's a lot of surplus and liquidation stock available.
What is a liquidation store?
Let's start with the basics; what is a liquidation store? Liquidation stores are mostly a US based sales channel whereby stores buy stock from companies that have gone into liquidation at a knock down price.
Liquidation stores, located up and down high streets in the US, will then sell the stock to consumers. These stores are filled with everything from discount office equipment to cheap health & beauty products. The best thing to the consumer is that there's always some hidden treasures in these places and the stock is completely different each week.
The concept has never truly transferred to UK high streets. The closest that the UK has is Discount Stores likes Wilko, B&M and Poundstretcher but these are usually short dated and excess stock products. These ranges are usually standardised, like a supermarket, so there's less variety to what you'd find it traditional liquidation stores.
What is the best liquidation site to buy from?
One issue with the tradition liquidation store is that the choice, for individual consumers, searching for online bargains, is very limited.
The majority of the best liquidation stores in the UK only service businesses looking to purchase liquidation stock in bulk. The majority of this bulk stock will be broken down to individual items and remarketed on marketplaces like Ebay or Amazon for a small discount.
1. liquidation.store
the liquidation.store is the first of it's kind in the UK. Offering big discounts, directly to the consumer, there's no middle man so discounts are passed directly onto the consumer. liquidation.store cherry-pick the best discounted food & drink, health & beauty and household goods and launch them via a flash sale. These unique deals are first come, first served and when they sell out, that's that.
With no minimum order and free shipping over £10, liquidation.store is the perfect place to shop for online bargains.
2. Britdeals
With over 100,000 products, Britdeals source and sell a whole host of merchandise at wholesale prices. Varying from pet products to adult toys, a minimum order of £100 means that Britdeals focus is mainly on bulk selling to other businesses rather than the individual bargain hunter. For those looking for bulk bargains, Britdeals also charge shipping on top of the sales prices so factor that into your overall price.
3. Merkandi
Merkandi, with over 75,000 buyers and stock from more than 150 countries, are one of the World's largest marketplaces for liquidation and surplus stock. Again, Merkandi focuses on bulk orders with most being pallets or containers, making them less applicable for the individual bargain hunter. It has to be noted that Merkandi is a marketplace so there are third party buyers and sellers. Even thought there is 'verified sellers', the quality and reliability of products can be called into question. There's even the possibility of fraud.
4. Top Down Trading
Top Down Trading is a clothing and footwear wholesaler specialising in bulk branded excess, returns and damaged stock. Products range from parcels, that start at 100 items, to containers that could be up to 60,000 items. There is an element of mystery to the products that you are buying with just the high level description mentioned e.g. 'Men's Lacoste Designer Chinos Parcel' which will have an array of sizes and styles. This mystery does add to the risk of not knowing what you are going to achieve.
The very nature of the number of items and the £300 min order means, unless you have a substantial walk in wardrobe, this site is very much made for business purchasers.
5. Marthill International
Marthill Internationals offer a wide range of excess and high street returns ranging from Furniture to DIY Tools. They sell well known branded stock by the pallet and even provide the breakdown of each pallet so you know, to an extent, what you are buying. With large order quantities on each pallet, this site is made for wholesalers/businesses looking to resell rather than the bargain hunter.
In summary, if you're a bargain hunter looking to buy discounted goods for gifts or yourself, liquidation.store is the perfect place to shop. If you're a business, looking to stock to resell to your customer base, there's a plethora of options out there to pick up bulk discounts.