PLAINFIELD, Ind. – Every year, $260 billion in items are returned or exchanged by shoppers. But where does it all go?
A lot of it goes to Liquidity Services in Plainfield, where a goldmine of returned merchandise sits waiting to be plucked up by someone looking for a deal.
Watch the video in our player above for an inside look and more from our interview with one of the leaders of the company.
The company works with top retailers to re-sell items that are sent back by shoppers. Those items don’t always make it back onto store shelves: Instead, they’re sent to the facility to be sorted and re-sold.
And anything from clothes, iPads, tools (heck, even sinks!) are there, offered at discounted prices.
“Many of (the items) end up being sold for 80 or 90 percent off of the retail price,” Liquidity Services Vice President of E-Commerce Jeff Rechtzigel said. “Some of them get more competitive, where they get to save 40 percent.”
And the best part?
Just about anyone can get in on the discounts by heading to Secondipity.com (where you can buy individual products) and Liquidation.com (where small businesses can buy items in bulk by bidding on them).
The demand is high: Last year, Liquidity Services sold over 70,000 bulk lots on Liquidation.com.
And it’s a thriving business. The company started with just a handful of employees and over the course of a decade, it grew into a 100-employee business with thousands of local customers.
There are four other Liquidity Services warehouse in North America besides the one in Plainfield: In Dallas, Las Vegas, North Carolina and Canada.
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