How to Buy Amazon Customer Return Pallets

Some Amazon History

Amazon is one of the most innovative and revolutionary companies of our time.  The company has done more to advance the state of ecommerce in the world than any other.  In addition, they have shaped the landscape of what it means to be customer-centric.

When the company was founded back in 1994, their tagline was 'Earth's biggest bookstore'.  Of course, they later expanded their product categories to include electronics, software, video games, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewelry.  Today, there is almost nothing you can't find on Amazon, either being sold by the company itself or by one of its third party sellers.  In fact, it surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States back in 2015.

One of the more important shifts Amazon has made in terms of its impact on the e-commerce and retail landscapes has been its focus on being 'customer-centric'.  In fact, their tagline has become 'Earth's most customer-centric company'.  This has led to a number of policies being implemented, with none more impactful than their lenient returns policy.  Amazon made returns free and nearly effortless to take the uncertainty and perceived risk out of the consumers' mind at the point of purchase.  This has had profound impact across all of retail.

Amazon Return Policy Shapes Consumer Buying Behavior

Today, in brick-and-mortar retail, there is an average return rate of around 8%.  Of course, this varies by category and can spike around the holidays.  In e-commerce, however, the return rate averages closer to 15-20% with some categories, like apparel, spiking up to 30%+.  Allowing these free and easy returns has become the price of entry for e-commerce companies in large part because of Amazon's push to be more customer-centric.  Approximately 85% of e-commerce shoppers say they review the retailers return policy before making a purchase.

What Happens to those Amazon Return Pallets

So, what happens to all those customer returns that Amazon so happily accepts?  The answer is that Amazon liquidates that returned inventory to small business buyers via their own online US-based liquidation marketplace and a European liquidation marketplace.  On these marketplaces, business buyers will find liquidation lots of returns as well as overstock inventory.  They sell lots in various sizes and configurations so there is always something that might be of interest.  In addition, the lots are sold via auction, so buyers can basically name their price and potentially win!

In addition, Amazon still sells some of its returns and overstock inventory to liquidators, which is why you will find Amazon pallets advertised for sale everywhere online.  However, if you buy from liquidators who themselves bought that inventory from Amazon, you will be paying them an additional markup to cover their costs of shipping and handling the inventory as well as their profit.  If you are new to the reselling world, here is a tip...you make your profit when you buy.  What I mean by that is, you will only profit if you buy at the right price since you have little to no control over the resale prices you will ultimately get for the inventory.  Paying additional markups to liquidators who purchased the goods from Amazon directly, will raise your cost of goods and erode (and maybe eliminate) your profit.  In addition, many liquidators will 'cherry-pick' the inventory.  This is the practice of taking out all the most valuable items and selling those directly to consumers.  The liquidator can make the profit you were planning on earning on the most attractive items and just sell you the remaining items.  It isn't uncommon for 80% of the value of these pallets to come from 10-20% of the items, so if the liquidator picks out those few items, there go your profits.  A company like Amazon, however, will not spend the time playing these games.  Their priority is to move the inventory quickly and get the best price available.  The best advice I can give you for your own business is to only buy directly from Amazon in their own liquidation marketplace.

I highly recommend you get registered to buy Amazon Customer Returns Pallets ASAP.