Liquidations: How Retailers Retain Value

All retail stores will be faced with the challenge of inventory liquidation at some point. Whether it is a planned event like handing inventory turnover or a store refresh – or an unplanned event like a fire or natural disaster, the key to a successful liquidation is to retain as much value as possible for all your inventory and assets. 

Maximize Value For Planned Liquidation

In the event of a store refresh or even a store closing, inventory liquidation becomes the primary focus of the project. In the planning phase there are some considerations to be made:

1. Determine what Can Be Resold Or Reused Reused

The obvious first step to retain value in the event of a liquidation is to determine the goods that can be resold directly. Whether it is through a liquidation vendor, a liquidation auction house, or even just relocating the goods to another store, resale and reuse are the highest retained value option for any product categories that you need to remove from a store. 

2. Determine What Can Be Donated 

Donation of unsold goods is a good way to get value out of unsold products indirectly in the form of tax credits. There are always agencies looking for donations, and as long as you keep good records of what was donated, there can be substantial financial benefits.

3. Determine What Can Be Recycled

Depending on the goods that you must liquidate, recycling can always be a consideration. There is value in recyclable products and materials, even if recycling isn’t the cheapest option. Recycling products can also go towards bolstering corporate sustainability numbers.

4. Determine What Must Be Disposed

In the event products can’t be recycled, donated, or resold – disposal is the last option. When working with companies that specialize in liquidation, disposal is the last option they generally accept because there is no retained value. 

5. Consider Alternatives

Assets and equipment have the unique aspect that they don’t have an expiration date. Because of this, you can do things like staging spares to be used in the event of an emergency or unexpected failure. There are retailers out there that maintain warehouse space for things like extra shelving and coolers just in case they are needed in the future. That is another, outside-the-box-solution to the problem of retaining value for assets that don’t have a use at the time. 

Maximize Value For Unplanned Liquidation

In the event of a fire or other disaster, the challenge of liquidation becomes even more complex. It’s easy to just consider a store’s inventory and assets a loss, but in reality – there is still a lot of retainable value there. Depending on the scope and nature of the disaster, there are liquidation experts that can come in and find solutions to all the considerations listed above with the added factor of speed. The faster a store gets cleaned up, the faster it can be repaired and opened back up. A lot of the “value” in post-disaster liquidation comes from how fast the job can be done. There is a happy balance between retained value and speed, and it generally boils down to one thing: your vendor. 

Choosing the Right Vendor

In the case of unplanned inventory liquidation, the real key is finding a vendor that specializes in retaining value over just getting everything out of the way for the construction companies. Take the time to vet your potential vendors and ask them how they go about ensuring that your stores are getting the highest possible return for all the inventory and assets that can be retained, as well as the ones that must be recycled or resold. Not all liquidation companies can handle emergency situations and not all the ones that can are good at it. 

The 1GNITE Difference

At 1GNITE we leverage our years of experience in the retail liquidation market to make sure that retained value is always top-of-mind in a liquidation project – planned or unplanned. We have an extensive network of vendors already in place to handle merchandise and assets, and we know what works and what doesn’t. In the event of a disaster, we have the added benefit of being experienced in emergency cleanup as well as liquidation. So, those two aspects of your recovery – which are directly related, can be handled by one company. That’s one less hoop to jump through on the way to re-opening your store, which means it will be done faster. 

No matter the scope of the project or the number of location – 1GNITE can handle all of your liquidation needs while ensuring that you retain the most value for all of the inventory and assets in your stores.