Every year, billions worth of consumer goods go unsold or are returned leaving retailers and manufacturers with congested warehouses and tied-up cash value. But this unsold inventory is usually perfectly usable, and business leaders have discovered that the ever-growing demand for it presents an opportunity to improve their own efficiency and bottom lines while benefiting all other players in a thriving circular economy. All it takes to tap into this demand is the right mindset and the right tools.
But before diving into solutions, let’s define the terms “recommerce” and “circular economy” and explore some of the perceived barriers and benefits to entering the growing secondary market.
What are recommerce and the circular economy?
Recommerce is the recovery and resale of returned, overstocked or otherwise unsold items. Say a customer returns a jacket due to poor fit. The retailer can opt to refund the customer, and ship, process and sell the jacket again. This would be considered “recommerce.” Or, if the retailer decides this isn’t cost-effective, it can sell these items in bulk to a different business that profits from buying and reselling such goods to end consumers—another form of recommerce.
The circular economy, then, is the worldwide system of ongoing interactions between (1) the major brands, retailers and manufacturers of consumer goods, (2) the smaller businesses that buy up unsold inventory to resell it, (3) the consumers that ultimately wind up with these goods, and (4) the many services and platforms that support and facilitate these transactions.
Challenges to ReCommerce
While it’s great to join the circular economy, brands and retailers who typically use traditional wholesalers and liquidators to move out surplus often cite a few key roadblocks to doing so.
- Poor recovery for goods: Businesses may feel that they’d rather take their chances remarketing or selling their items at outlet stores rather than sell to lowballing liquidators
- Few buyers and outdated processes: Relying on just a few liquidators is a risky strategy—if one closes up shop or rejects a seller’s inventory, they’ll need to scramble to find another buyer. And often, traditional liquidators use slow manual methods like phone calls, emails and spreadsheets to manage deals
- Space concerns and poor logistics: Industries like fashion and apparel move quickly and some companies may prefer to throw away their unsold inventory or offload it fast for just pennies rather than sit on depreciating goods while slogging through cumbersome traditional liquidation processes
Between shifting perceptions on once-bought or discounted goods and forward-thinking inventory reduction solutions, these challenges may be more manageable than they once were.
Widespread benefits
In a world where production speed needs to match consumer expectations, and much of what’s bought goes unsold or returned, a recommerce solution is a vital tool for any brand or retailer. Even better? A circular economy-focused resale model can benefit all players involved:
- Enterprises recover value on unsold goods that take up valuable storage space and tie up cash value as they depreciate
- The environment benefits as every item resold is one that stays out of a landfill or our oceans
- Many entrepreneurs and independent business owners rely on goods from major brands and retailers to fill their own shelves
- With cost of living on the rise, consumers seek out affordable stores that buy and resell excess inventory
B-stock: your key to the circular economy
B-Stock is the world’s largest online B2B marketplace for returned and excess merchandise—and choosing to partner with B-Stock to move out inventory in bulk comes with several business benefits.
The auction format of B-Stock’s spot sales solution means that many buyers compete, fetching you the highest prices the market will supply. Beyond just recovery, B-Stock improves the speed and regularity of inventory reduction. With a global network of over 500K buyers, there’s demand for any type of inventory and our platform’s efficiency-minded features can put cash value back in your account as soon as 15 days after signup.
Further, B-Stock offers contract sales for those looking to move out large amounts of recurring surplus for pre-negotiated prices, and can even broker direct sales to move out irregular or one-off lots as quickly as possible. And with access to nearly 20 years of marketplace-wide sales data, B-Stock can accurately forecast performance and optimize your recommence strategy for superior results.
Whether your goal is recovery, velocity, or predictability—or any combination of these—our dedicated recommerce experts will help you make the most of the circular economy and build you a data-backed recommerce strategy to fit your needs.