goWholesale

No, there is no way to do this (unless the manager is doing it under the table, which wouldn't be legal). If you have the capital, you can do what we do. You can find out where they send the goods and contact that redemption center. You will have to have a good amount of money (minimum $50,000.00 usually). I buy Customer Returns, Shelf Pulls & Overstock Items. It sounds like a lot of money but you get A LOT more merchandise buying by the loads than by the pallet or lot, and going this way eliminates the middle man

What are you looking to purchase? I may be able to point you in the right direction

BestBuy's Overstock,Liquidation & Salvage is handled by this site:
http://www.techliquidators.com/

Sealed bid process; inventory is availab le to view on-line.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Michael

"Any of you had this happen and if so what suggestions you have for me?"

Pretty simple customer returns are 50-90% broken items, you get what you pay for. If you know how to repair or have a market for items that may work but look terrible customer returns may be for you. I made money by being a junk dealer for years, there is a market for this stuff but it MUST be very cheap to be equitable.

The problem is "ideots" yes I said it, compete for this stuff driving the price up on customer returns above what is reasonable. Furthermore companies are now getting contracts to get all of a companies returns, cherry pick, sell through a different front and sell the garbage at overly high prices at salvage sites. Customer returns should sell for 1/10 retail AT THE MOST. Many items should sell for much less than that even due to the failure level. Unless it is a very specific type of product that is more marketable/repairable.

I would say cut your losses, unless you can buy & inspect return items at auction and get them at a low price.

May I ask What type of products and from whom you purchased? Hard goods (not electronics) are the best salage items for beginners as they can't break, food, clothes, etc. Electronics make the most cash but you must know exactly what you are doing and must be able to get at a very low almost give away price.

Good Luck.

Your wrong 80% of customer returns work customers lie and say they are broken as they are affaid to return things so they lie. I know as I have been in retail for over ten years and tested a lot of returns and customers are not all that bright and don't bother to read instructions so they return things. Batteries put in backwards is a big return.

rmay635703 wrote:"Any of you had this happen and if so what suggestions you have for me?"

Pretty simple customer returns are 50-90% broken items, you get what you pay for. If you know how to repair or have a market for items that may work but look terrible customer returns may be for you. I made money by being a junk dealer for years, there is a market for this stuff but it MUST be very cheap to be equitable.

"Your wrong 80% of customer returns work customers lie and say they are broken as they are affaid to return things so they lie. I know as I have been in retail for over ten years and tested a lot of returns and customers are not all that bright and don't bother to read instructions so they return things. Batteries put in backwards is a big return. "

Actually your wrong, well actually we are both right to a point.

What you say is ONLY TRUE if your a 2nd party AKA I get to buy the return from the store before the store itself or another party tests and cherry picks.

The case shown is dealing as a 3rd party, in this case I know much more than you do on this matter as I have purchased as a 2nd and 3rd party for about 8yrs of my life before I gave it up due to corporate greed (their trying to make up for lost profits out both ends now and most are contracted out to useless front ends that oversell the items to the unknowing and ignorant).

As BB is concerned this is how a customer return goes in the following steps (roughly).

1. Customer Buys product and returns
2. BB does minor inspection, if complete junk it goes to step 5, if its good/fair it goes to step 3
3. Customer Return is sold as open box
4. Customer Returns open box item
5. Best Buy cherry picks and sells the excess to a 2nd party
6. 2nd Party cherry picks and what is left is sold as "Customer Returns"

So in other words what you are saying is technically true if you are an employee at best buy and do something illegal, otherwise what is sold as "Customer Returns"
from BB and many other companies should really be labeled SALVAGE! (another word for junk)

You can make money on salvage/junk but the price must be very low to make up for the very high failure rate or the repairs / repair people you will need to account for. I used to buy everything myself and sell everything good, fix some and liquidate the rest cheap in AS-IS condition. I wasn't a big fish but made good money for being a kid, now days the quality of customer returns is the same as salvage from most corps and you can easily get agreement from many, other than me on this issue.

The salvage market and customer returns market are all pretty much useless unless you can be either a 2nd party or have a REALLY good source that doesn't try to oversell its "junk" They all say they don't cherry pick which is usually a flatout lie as you don't get 80% failure from straight customer returns but that is the norm nowdays on most electronic "return" items.

Your best bet would be to find a small local company and buy their returns flatout if you can get them cheaply. That way you do a service to them and yourself. Buying through 2nd and 3rd party dealers for the most part doesn't work unless you truly know who you are dealing with and know how much junk you will get for certain.

Good Luck to all

bamatronics you know what your doing, the fact that you bid on the items is a good indication.

Many newbies try to buy from say imasdi or whatever it is called now at a fixed price from a front. Not all fixed price joints are bad but many I encountered around 2002 when I quit were quite useless.

Also what you and I describe as good can many times be considered "bad" by a newby because they can't overlook simple problems like missing/broken accessories, broken power supplies, scratches, dents, etc, components that need basic tlc/etc.

I bought from very very questionable sources and I only sold Computers and their components, my experience is general electronics tend to have a lower failure rate than pcs but pcs are easier to salvage for components. Though VCRs were easy to fix back when they were still worth fixing.

I always was a pessimist buying and an optimist selling, I expected 80% failure and banked on it but usually did better (sometimes much better) once I knew my sources (which are now long gone) I was able to sell pretty close to 100% of the items, having an engineering background helped as did ebays site for less than perfect items . I made a killing repairing items back when PCs were still worth $1k+

The truth is to buy returns you need to be able to either
1. Know your source well or
2. Know nothing of your source but be able to be happy with high levels of failures, either by repair or by getting low prices. You won't necessarily get high failure levels but you need to be able to accept and tollerate them if thats what happens, and you need to know what to do in the future.

Both methods take experience and mistakes.

Cheers