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STORES: What areas does Liquidity Services cover?
Angrick: Damaged goods, liquidation items and what we call seasonal shelf-pull merchandise – products not sold but reclaimed because they didn’t match seasonal demand. It’s all brand new merchandise and still in the box, but every time you handle these goods you potentially diminish their value.

So, it’s in the interest of our clients to minimize handling of shelf-pulled merchandise. We can save clients a lot of money because we’re an end-to-end solution – a single point of contact for handling the physical flow of goods.

STORES: How so?
Angrick: We provide six distribution centers in the U.S. where sellers can ship products from the store. They don’t have to manage it in their own supply chains. Once that product is out of the way, a retailer can focus on merchandise from their forward supply chain for the next cycle.

We also handle sales and marketing of these items through an online auction model so goods are made available to professional, competitive buyers that purchase in pallet quantities. I’d say we average five auction participants for every lot we sell. We also handle financial settlements so sellers don’t have to verify the financial capabilities of buyers or collect funds from them.

STORES: Can you prevent unauthorized buyers from making fraudulent returns once they have the goods?
Angrick: We know retailers have to protect themselves and their brands, so we provide a service to remove labels from boxes so they can’t be taken back to the store for a return credit. Failure to de-label is a big issue when it comes to fraudulent returns, which amounts to about $100 billion a year.

We also share data with sellers. As such, we are able to report daily on everything we received from a retailer, where it is in the sale process and what amount is due to the seller.

STORES: I guess the question that comes up all the time when it comes to auctions is whether they’re secure.
Angrick: We are a regulated, managed buyer marketplace: You can’t list or purchase goods unless you’ve been approved. We make sure everyone is who they say they are. We’ve created a safe trading environment.