Buyers Prepare! Holiday Returns Are On Their Way To Our Marketplaces!

While the rush of holiday shopping may be over, the tidal wave of returns is just about to begin and it will make for a great opportunity for you as a buyer! Here’s the scoop: 77% of consumers plan to return a portion of their gifts this year to equal a whopping $90 billion worth of merchandise coming back to retailers in the days following Christmas. What’s more, less than 10% of that merchandise can actually be restocked on primary store shelves! So what does this mean for you? Well, retailers use B-Stock to offload all of this inventory and offset some of their losses. And this means you, as a buyer, can bank on the busts of these retailers. Because come January, it’s time to bulk up on inventory for your business.

Why Now? 

We help nine of the top 10 U.S. retailers remarket their customer-returned and excess merchandise. So come January, B-Stock is a busy place! In fact, we see a 30% increase in inventory sold across our B2B marketplaces from January through March. A majority of this inventory (70%) is post-holiday customer returns while 30% is excess/shelf pulls. This equates to more auctions, more inventory, and more opportunity for you as a buyer. 

What Can You Expect?

The number of truckloads of returned merchandise actually doubles from January through March. That’s a whole lot of inventory up for auction! So, what types of items are the most popular following the holidays? The top post-holiday returned items you’ll find on B-Stock marketplaces include:

• Women’s trendy apparel
• Toys
• Specialty kitchen items
• Tools 
• Seasonal decor 

The Spike in Dot-Com

The amount of inventory from online retailers and channels increases by 36% following Christmas. And for buyers, that’s a huge win! In case you weren’t aware, dot-com inventory is typically in better condition than traditional in-store returns. Why? Well, there’s the tendency of a shopper to order two or three styles of the same thing and send back the ones that don’t work. Or perhaps the item was shipped incorrectly. Additionally, buyers are more careful when returning online purchases because they want to ensure a full credit. To learn more about the additional benefits of dot-com inventory, read our post on Why DOT COM Returns Are Worth a Second Look.

As a buyer, the months following the holidays are a prime time to bulk up on inventory for your business. To begin your buying journey visit our Sourcing page today!