Excess Inventory Liquidation Strategies

Deadstock is a silent killer. Here’s how to fix it. At Chubbies, we lived and died by inventory efficiency. But early on, we learned the hard way: Deadstock isn’t just excess inventory—it’s locked-up cash, wasted storage costs, and a slow bleed on margins. If you run a $20-$50M brand, you already know how quickly unsold products accumulate. A seasonal bet misses. A SKU doesn’t hit—consumer demand shifts. You’re sitting on thousands of units, hoping discounts will move them. And these products are not fine wines—they don’t age well. Here’s how we solved it: 𝟭. 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 Track sell-through rates and aging inventory at the SKU level. If an SKU isn’t moving at the pace you expected in the first 30 days, your system needs to notify you, and you need to take action. It’s now a liability. 𝟮. 𝗧𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗵 Be proactive. Run flash sales, try unique bundling promotions, or offload to discount channels as a last resort. The cash from these products will feed your future product winners! 𝟯. 𝗡𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗰𝗲 Audit past buys, tighten demand forecasting, and set hard rules for re-ordering so you don’t repeat bad inventory bets. Deadstock isn’t just a storage & operational issue—it’s a profitability killer. Fix it early, or watch it compound. What’s your deadstock horror story? Let’s talk👇 #deadstock #inventorymanagement

If TJ Maxx and sample sales are your grand plan for selling excess inventory, you’re doing it wrong. I get the appeal: You can sell through a whole lot of stock fast. But you make pennies on the dollar and cheapen your brand along the way. There’s gold (and margin…) to be found in your excess inventory and second-quality stock—you just have to know where to sell it. There’s a better way 🙌 –> Step 1: List this inventory on your own branded resale site. Margins are higher, customers stay in your ecosystem, and you own all the data. –> Step 2: Cross-list on trusted resale marketplaces like eBay. You may lose a bit of customer data, but you maintain brand integrity and still capture more value than through any other liquidation channel. –> Step 3: As a last resort, keep discount retailers, sample sales, and B2B marketplaces in your back pocket. The smartest brands are not treating their excess like waste – there’s a lot to gain by adding a couple additional steps before typical liquidation. And btw, we're automating this entire process for brands at Treet.

Even though it's January, Amazon sellers are still in PEAK fee season. 🔝 Why? Because Monthly Inventory Storage Fees (and any Aged Inventory Surcharges) from December will be assessed between the 7th and 15th of this month. So, if you're sitting on excess stock from Q4, and want to avoid a hefty storage bill, you have a decision to make: 1) Sell-through 2) Remove 3) Dispose/destroy 4) Liquidate ❌ Selling through the inventory is likely not an option. I mean, you were probably running promos on this inventory during Q4 and you couldn't clear it. ❌ Removals take *forever* to actually get the product back. And, it's going to come in onesie, twosie shipments because Amazon has the inventory distributed through its network. And, you're going to have to process and grade the inventory when it comes back. ❌ Disposals now cost the same as Removals (this change happened in 2023), so there's no longer an "arbitrage" opportunity in deciding to Remove vs Dispose. ✅ Which leaves...Liquidations. I'll argue until I'm blue in the face 🥶 that this should be your default option for dealing with excess inventory on Amazon. As a simple heuristic, you should liquidate all products for which: 👉 Upcoming Monthly Inventory Storage Fees > (T30D Sales x Cash Payout %) Put differently, if your cost of keeping the product at Amazon for the next 30 days is going to exceed the cash returned to your balance sheet from the next 30 days of sales, then you should Liquidate. (FYI: Cash Payout = Sales - Referral Fees - FBA Fees - PPC Costs) *** #amazon #amazonfba #amazonsellers