Your options for dead stock, ranked by what you actually recover.
What happens to dead stock, honestly? Most of it gets liquidated for pennies or written off, two exits that clear the racks but return almost nothing. There are four ways out, and only one is scored on a documented check: a liquidator pays roughly 5–10% of original cost; distributors working with us typically recover 3–5× that liquidator's offer. Here's the whole ranking, ours included, fair to every option.
Every row concedes what it's actually good at. The arithmetic does the rest.
- KEEP HOLDING
- RECOVERS NOTHING
- WRITE OFF
- RECOVERS ZERO
- LIQUIDATOR
- ~5–10% OF COST
- RECOVER W/ HD
- 3–5× THAT
The ranking
Four exits, side by side.
Dead stock here means distributor inventory that hasn't moved in roughly 12 to 18 months, the 365+ column of your aging report. Below is every practical way out of it, scored on three things a buyer actually cares about: what it puts back in your pocket, what it costs you, and what you can verify afterward.
| Exit | What it recovers | What it costs you | What you can verify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keep holding it | Nothing, slowly.Recovers: nothing | Racking space and tied-up capital every month it sits, a year older at the next count. | Only that it's still there. The number on the aging report keeps climbing. |
| Write it off | Zero, it's an accounting exit, not a physical one.Recovers: zero, still sits | The books are cleaned up, but the pallets don't leave. They keep eating racking every day after. | The tax treatment is real and verifiable with your accountant. The empty floor space is not, because it isn't empty. |
| Sell to a liquidator | Roughly 5–10% of original cost, pennies on the dollar.Recovers: pennies | The upside. They cherry-pick the good stock and keep what it earns beyond the lump sum. | One blind check. Fast and certain, but the story ends there, no line-item account of what your inventory actually sold for. |
| Public auction / online resale | Varies, item by item, and only for what buyers happen to bid on.Recovers: uneven | Listing fees, your time, and your brand visible in public listings where your own customers can find it. | Sale-by-sale, if you do the work yourself, but the cherry-picking is now yours to manage, on the slow-moving stock nobody bid on. |
| Recover it with us | Typically 3–5× a liquidator's offer, item by item as it sells.Recovers: a real check | No upfront cost, no fee to send inventory. You palletize; we handle everything after. | A monthly itemized statement, every item, what it sold for, every expense, in writing, for as long as it sells. |
Reading the rows fairly
Each option, given its due.
Writing it off is honest accounting, and it doesn't empty the racks
A write-off is a legitimate move: on stock you've already written off, the loss was booked long ago, and the tax treatment is real. That's the fair part, and it matters. But it's an accounting exit, not a physical one, the pallets are still in the building the next morning, still costing you racking. The only ongoing cost on written-off stock is the space it stands on, which means anything recovered from here is pure upside, money you'd already stopped counting on.
Is dead stock a tax write-off? In short: yes, obsolete inventory can generally be written down or off, on your accountant's timing, but that clears the ledger, not the floor.
The liquidator wins on speed and certainty, and only there
Give the liquidator its due: it's fast, it's a lump sum, and you're done the day the truck loads. If certainty this week is worth more to you than what the inventory is actually worth, that's a real trade. What you give up is everything above roughly 5–10% of cost, they cherry-pick the good stock, keep the upside, and hand you one blind check with no account of what sold for what.
Public auctions and online resale: real for a few SKUs, a trap for a pallet
Selling it yourself in public listings can work for a handful of clean, in-demand items. But two problems scale badly with a mixed dead-stock pallet: your brand becomes visible in public listings where your own customers shop, and the cherry-picking becomes your problem, you're left managing the slow, odd, discontinued stock nobody bid on. It's a partial exit dressed as a full one.
Recovering it with us: the row that's scored on paper
Every other row asks you to trust a number you can't check. This one is built to be audited: distributors working with us typically recover 3–5× what a liquidator would pay, and every dollar of it lands on a monthly itemized statement, every item, what it sold for, every expense from the period, in writing. No upfront cost, no manifest to build. You palletize what's stuck; the truck, the receiving, the sorting, the listing, and the selling are ours.
See exactly how it works →Recovery comparison per our founding team's distributor work; every lot is different, which is exactly what the 15-minute call is for.
Before you ask
The comparison questions distributors ask.
Q1What happens to dead stock?+
Honestly, most of it meets one of two ends: it gets liquidated for pennies on the dollar, or it gets written off and keeps sitting. The point of ranking every exit is that neither of those is the only option, recovery through resale returns far more of what the inventory is actually worth, item by item.
Q2What is inventory liquidation, and how can I liquidate inventory?+
Inventory liquidation is selling excess or dead stock in bulk, usually to a liquidator who pays a single lump sum, roughly 5–10% of original cost, and resells it for their own account. You liquidate it by getting a bulk offer and shipping the lot. It's fast and certain; what you trade away is everything the inventory would have earned above that lump sum.
Q3What should I do with dead stock?+
Rank the exits by what actually comes back. Holding it recovers nothing and keeps costing you space. Writing it off clears the books but not the floor. A liquidator pays pennies. Recovering it through resale typically returns 3–5× a liquidator's offer with the whole thing documented monthly, which is why it sits at the top of the table above.
Q4Is dead stock a tax write-off?+
Generally yes, obsolete or unsellable inventory can usually be written down or written off, on your accountant's timing. But the write-off is an accounting exit, not a physical one: the loss leaves your books, the pallets don't leave your racks. Recovering the stock and writing off only what truly can't sell are not mutually exclusive.
The next 15 minutes
The table ends at your lot. Start with one pallet.
The ranking tells you which exit wins on arithmetic. What it can't tell you is which row your specific lot lands on, that takes a look at the actual stock. Send one pallet of write-offs, stock the books already took the hit on, and read the monthly statement that comes back. If the number's real, you send more. If it isn't, one pallet of write-offs is off your floor.
Book a 15-minute call