Questions distributors ask before sending us inventory.
In two sentences: we help hardware and industrial distributors recover money from the excess and obsolete inventory sitting in their back racks, you palletize what's stuck and ship it, and we sort, list, and sell it through our own resale channels, sending a monthly itemized statement of what sold. Below are the questions we actually get, grouped and answered straight.
One disambiguation up front: by dead stock we mean distributor inventory that hasn't moved in roughly 12 to 18 months, not sneakers, and not vintage fabric. Different internet, same word.
What counts
Definitions.
The vocabulary, sorted out first.
What is dead stock?+
Dead stock is inventory that hasn't moved in roughly 12 to 18 months, the stock living in the 365+ column of your aging report. For a distributor that usually means discontinued lines, overbuys, and customer returns that never made it back onto the shelf. If it's been sitting a year or more with no realistic path back into your normal sales, it's dead stock.
What is an example of dead stock?+
A case of fittings for a spec that got superseded. A pallet of a discontinued tool line after the vendor changed finishes. Breakers stranded by a code cycle. Safety-dated MRO consumables bought to hit a minimum for a contract that ended. All of it is real product that simply stopped selling through your normal channel, and it's all sitting in the 365+ column.
What is the difference between dead stock and obsolete inventory?+
They overlap. Obsolete inventory is stock that can no longer be sold through normal channels because it's outdated, superseded specs, discontinued lines, expired-standard product. Dead stock is the broader bucket: anything that has stopped moving for a long stretch, whether it went obsolete or was simply overbought. In practice, most obsolete inventory is also dead stock, but not all dead stock is technically obsolete, some of it is perfectly current product you just have too much of.
What is excess inventory?+
Excess inventory is stock you hold beyond what your demand justifies, the overbuy, the case you broke open to serve one order, the seasonal load that didn't clear. It isn't necessarily old or obsolete yet; it's just more than you need. Left alone long enough, excess inventory is how a lot of dead stock is born.
What it costs
Money.
The predictable first question, answered without dodging.
What does it cost to get started?+
Nothing upfront, no fee to send inventory, no charge to get started, no software to buy. What the recovery on your specific lot looks like is exactly what the 15-minute call is for, because every lot is different and we won't guess at a number before we've seen the stock.
When will I be paid?+
Monthly. Every month your inventory is selling, you get paid, alongside a monthly itemized statement, every item, what it sold for, and every expense from the prior month, in writing, for as long as it keeps selling. No lump-sum guesswork and no chasing.
Is it really worth more than a liquidator's check?+
For most distributors, yes, by a wide margin: those working with us typically recover 3–5× what liquidators pay, and unlike a liquidator's single blind check, every dollar of it is documented on the monthly statement. A liquidator wins on speed and certainty; recovery wins on how much actually comes back. We rank every exit side by side here.
What happens to it
Process and channel.
Where it goes and how it moves.
How do I get rid of obsolete inventory?+
The short version: a 15-minute call, then straight guidelines on what's worth shipping, then you palletize it and we arrange the truck and schedule the pickup. From there we receive, sort, scan, list, and sell it, and send you a monthly statement. The full five-step walk-through is here.
What happens to dead stock after it ships?+
It's received, sorted, scanned, and listed for sale at retail through our established resale channels. Every item that sells lands on your monthly itemized statement, so nothing disappears into a black box, you can see what each piece sold for.
Do I need to ship my inventory to you?+
Yes, it sells from our warehouse, not yours, and that's also what frees your floor. You palletize what's stuck and we take care of the freight from there: we arrange the truck and schedule the pickup, and you can be as involved in the freight process as you want to be, including not at all. The day it leaves your dock, the racking is yours again.
Do I have to inventory or list it first?+
No. There's no manifest to build and no itemized list to send, that's the point. Stack what's stuck on pallets, mixed SKUs and all, and ship it. The receiving, sorting, and scanning is our job on our side, and every item still ends up accounted for on your statement.
What protects you
Your customers, your brand, your paper trail.
The trust questions, the ones that actually stop the deal.
Will selling my dead stock undercut my own customers?+
No, and protecting your customer relationships is a design requirement of the model, not an afterthought. Your inventory is resold at retail through our established resale channels, outside your trade channel, away from your counter and the customers who buy from you. It doesn't come back to compete with you where you sell.
What about brands that restrict who can resell them?+
That's exactly what the sorting and scanning step is for. As every item is received it's routed to a channel where it can legitimately sell, so restricted lines aren't handled the same way as open ones. The whole intake exists to make sure each item ends up somewhere it's allowed to be sold, not dumped indiscriminately.
What do I actually see after it ships?+
A monthly itemized statement: every item that sold, what it sold for, and every expense from the period, in writing. It's a document you could hand your controller, the answer to the real question you should ask anyone who takes your inventory, which is "how will I know what actually happened to it?"
The practical rest
Logistics, honesty, and tax.
What we won't take, and what the write-off really does.
Will you take everything?+
No, and you want it that way. Some items aren't worth the freight, big, low-priced stock like ladders, and we'll tell you which ones before anything ships. A company that says yes to everything hasn't thought about what happens after the truck leaves. You should only ever send stock that's worth sending.
What if some of it isn't worth shipping?+
Then we say so up front. Straight guidelines on what to leave on the rack are part of step two, before you touch a pallet. Telling you what not to ship is part of the job, it's how you know the guidance is honest.
Is dead stock a tax write-off?+
Generally yes, obsolete or unsellable inventory can usually be written down or off, on your accountant's timing. But here's the part worth sitting with: the write-off is an accounting exit, not a physical one. On stock you've already written off, the loss was booked long ago and the only ongoing cost is the racking it stands on, so anything recovered from here is pure upside. Writing off what truly can't sell and recovering what can are not mutually exclusive. The full breakdown is in our comparison of exits.
Can I start small?+
Yes. You can start with a single pallet, send one, see what comes back on the statement, and decide with the paper in your hand whether to send more. Nothing about this asks you to commit the whole aisle to find out if it works.
Who we are
The people on the other end.
Who are we actually talking to?+
A partner in the business, someone who has stood in distributor warehouses and moved this kind of inventory, not a rep reading a script. You get your guidelines straight from a person who will be involved in handling your stock. More about who we are here.
The next 15 minutes
The one question we can't answer here is what YOUR lot is worth.
That's the 15-minute call: what you have, roughly how much, how long it's been sitting. Bring an aging report if you can pull one, and you'll get straight guidelines on what's worth shipping. No commitment attached, just the number this page can't give you.
Book a 15-minute call