Liquidation Terms Glossary
Liquidation Terms Glossary. This guide is written for resellers, and it says what we would tell a customer on the phone. If you are working out liquidation terms glossary, the short version is below and the detail follows. Nothing here is a pitch for a particular load.
Condition and sourcing terms
Unmanifested: no itemised contents list exists for the load. Quantities are approximate.
Manifested: an itemised list is supplied. Costs more, because producing it means cataloguing the stock.
Customer return: goods returned by a buyer. Condition unknown until opened.
Shelf pull: removed from sale while still saleable. The product is usually fine, the packaging often is not.
Overstock: stock that never sold. Generally the cleanest category in liquidation.
Salvage: damaged or incomplete goods, sold on that basis.
NWT / NWOT: new with tags, new without tags. Apparel shorthand.
Handling and freight terms
Gaylord: the large bulk box loose stock arrives in, usually sitting on a pallet.
Case pack: sealed multiples of a single item, as it left the manufacturer.
LPN: a licence plate number, the barcode a warehouse uses to track a returned unit.
Liftgate: a powered platform on the truck that lowers a pallet to ground level. Needed if you have no dock or forklift.
Bill of Lading: the delivery document. Freight damage must be written on it before the driver leaves, or the carrier’s liability ends.
Truckload: a full trailer bought as one consignment rather than as separate pallets.
Terms used to mislead
Estimated retail value: what a load would supposedly sell for at full retail. On unmanifested goods this is guesswork presented as a fact, and it is the most common way buyers are misled. We do not publish it.
Manifest available on request: on an unmanifested load, this cannot be true. Either the load is graded, or the list is invented.
Guaranteed value: nobody can guarantee the resale value of goods nobody has itemised.
Liquidation terms glossary: the short answer
If you take one thing from this page, take this: the price of a liquidation load is the payment for work nobody has done to it. Nothing is opened, graded or sorted before it ships, and that is exactly why it costs what it costs. Judge every load on landed cost per unit, assume a share of it will not sell, and buy from a seller whose terms are written down before you pay.
Where to go next
To see live loads, the category pages list everything we currently have, with the condition basis and the price on each listing. Our other guides cover pricing, freight and the red flags worth walking away from, and the glossary defines every term used above. Our full shipping and returns terms are published in full, which is the same standard we suggest you hold any seller to when working out liquidation terms glossary.
