A Strategic Resale Plan for Holiday Returns 

Ho ho no! It’s that time of year: holiday returns are on the horizon. Whether a problematic electronic item, an ugly sweater, or a piece of jewelry that missed the mark, around 18 percent — close to $170 billion worth of merchandise — once purchased/gifted/unwrapped, will be heading back to U.S. retailers this holiday season. Though much of it will be in functional and cosmetically perfect condition, most will not go back on store or virtual shelves. Instead, it will end up sitting idle in a warehouse, taking up space and losing value.

This is why having a B2B re-commerce plan in place for returned and overstock items — to recoup the most value — is crucial.

In particular, an online B2B resale platform — one that is backed by technology and data with multiple channels to sell the inventory — can help solve the post-holiday warehouse pile-up by enabling retailers to move bulk quantities of inventory at scale without sacrificing velocity or channel conflict.

A Central Hub for B2B Resale

Some of today’s biggest retailers and brands are leveraging a B2B resale platform to act as a centralized hub for all their secondary market resale needs. By moving everything onto one online platform, these companies have a single system of record and are able to tackle what’s historically been a fragmented and extremely manual process. When choosing a B2B platform, look for one that provides the following:

Confidence in Pricing

Whether selling to a single buyer or to thousands, it’s critical to know the fair market value of the merchandise and the factors that affect it, including condition, inventory type, and sales channel. A B2B resale platform that holds years of pricing data against these many variables presents a more accurate view of pricing. The best platforms provide a variety of ways to move merchandise into the secondary market (resale via an open marketplace, time-bound contracts, or private one-to-one transactions) and can compare resale performance across these channels.

Velocity at Scale

A B2B resale platform that offers multiple channels to move out returned and excess inventory allows for scalability. It can handle a substantial uptick in merchandise, post-holiday (and all-year long), without sacrificing velocity.

A Diverse Base of Buyers

An online B2B resale platform that comes with a database of thousands of business buyers drives up demand, pricing and sales cycle time. The best will also offer targeted marketing to a particular type of buyer and be able to onboard any of your existing buyers to whom you might currently be selling to manually.

Brand and Channel Control

For high-profile and sensitive brands, channel control is important. An online B2B resale platform allows for control over how inventory is remarketed and to whom it can be sold to. Be sure to look for a platform that enables you to establish guidelines including:

• excluding resale on 3rd party marketplaces;
• establishing geographical limitations;
• selling only to exporters;
• selling only to off-price retailers;
• requiring brick-and-mortar sales exclusively; and
• mandating items be de-labeled prior to resale.

Historical Data

Applying  data to achieve your B2B resale goals, whether recovery, velocity or brand control, can make all the difference. Even the smallest adjustments can translate to major improvements. For example, many factors including manifest design, condition, brand, and SKU depth affect pricing when it comes to selling bulk quantities of inventory into the secondary market.

Performance Tracking

An online B2B resale platform also keeps data on hand for a number of different needs, enabling compliance and better financial decision-making. Look for a B2B resale platform that provides access to permanent, detailed performance and financial figures. These are critical for:

• accurate bookkeeping;
• tax reporting purposes;
• compliance;
• insurance assessments and claims; and
• ensuring buyers meet requirements.

We can all agree, holiday returns (and returns in general) are a cost of doing business. Having a strategic resale plan in place for them — ideally via a single platform — can soften the impact.

Marcus Shen is the CEO of B-Stock, the largest B2B resale platform, connecting sellers and buyers of returned and excess inventory through a suite of online resale channels.