Have you ever wondered what happens to products once a newer line of stock is brought in to replace them? What about those items that are returned, potentially unboxed or with labels removed? As an online seller you should consider all avenues when it comes to purchasing items, and clearance, returned and refurbished goods can be great options for picking up a bargain deal to sell on for a profit.

The question is where is the best place to go to find these goods?

Clearance Stores

The first option is that of the clearance store. Although it’s possible to find clearance goods on the high-street if you happen to get lucky and stumble upon the last item or two of a discontinued line your best bet is to head online. Did you know that the vast majority of electrical retailers, along with many others, operate their own online discount stores for the very purpose of selling off this old stock? Some use third party ecommerce sites such as eBay while others operate their very own stores. Here are just a few examples for you:

The list really does go on and on. In fact, if there’s a retailer that you commonly sell stock from or that you believe might offer the sort of products that would fit within your niche market then you should try going to Google and searching for the name of the company, followed by the word ‘clearance’.

CURRYS_CLEARANCEAlmost every retailer that I tried putting into Google came up with some sort of result. This is a great strategy to use for sourcing stock for your own online selling business, or even if you’re just looking for a bargain on a product that you need for the home or office!

If you aren’t sure of the name of a shop that might sell products that you’re looking for at a clearance price you could always try searching for a type of item followed by ‘clearance’. This is just as likely to return a number of potential stores that could sell what you’re looking for at a really reduced rate. Just look at the number of results returned when searching for ‘shoes clearance’:

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Why not head to Google right now and start searching for a specific product to see if there are any clearance deals that could work for you. This really is a great strategy for finding some good offers, though clearance stock typically doesn’t hang around for long so you may need to get lucky in finding a specific item that you’re looking for.

Returned Items

Another avenue to consider along with clearance stock is returned items. Sometimes products that are returned can’t be sold on again for their full retail price, despite being perfectly adequate for sale and not damaged. It’s down to restrictions on retailers in that they need to sell certain products with certain labels or with undamaged and unopened boxes.

It’s usually harder to find returned items than clearance once, but a Google search could reveal a few useful results for your own niche market.

Alternatively you could consider browsing through the stock on a website such as iForce Auctions – although there are single items for sale on this site, you can also get your hands on some serious savings if you have the means to store items as you can purchase whole pallets of returned goods, or even seek out a discount on full containers full of goods!

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This is an auction website so you have the option to bid on items for a hopefully great deal, or alternatively in the same way the eBay works you can also buy out some products for a fixed price. It’s worth a look if you’re looking for some big bulk buys as there may be some good offers to be had. Just make sure you know you’ll be able to sell the items on for a profit if you’re investing a significant amount of money on buying a pallet worth of goods, especially if they’re not a product that you’ve specifically sold before.

A lot of returned items these days are simply returned to the manufacturer if there is any problem with the product enclosed within or for re-boxing. This can make it difficult to pick up the real bargains that were once available in this area, but it’s still worth having a search around now and then to see if you can get lucky.

Refurbished Goods

Along with clearance and returned items is another sometimes overlooked way of sourcing relatively cheap electrical goods. Many manufacturers will refurbish electrical items in order to sell them on again. These refurbished goods frequently come with a year’s guarantee just as they do when new, so they can be quite lucrative to sell on if you can source your stock for a good price.

Some large retailers offer refurbished items such as computers through their own stores such as PC World, Dell, Hewlett Packard and Acer to name just a few. Some of these refurbished models are designed especially for businesses; however others can be individually purchased and disposed of in any manner that you desire. The trick with purchasing refurbished stock is definitely ensuring that there’s a profit to be had, as a lot of these stores are selling their goods at a rate that you’d struggle to beat through selling in your own online store.

Hopefully this article has provided you with some inspiration as to some potential avenues of sourcing stock that you might not have previously considered. Keeping an eye on clearance stores that are related to your own niche market could really help you to get your hands on some excellent prices that could bring in some extra profit through whatever store you choose to use to sell the goods on to your buyers.