What happens to unsold sale items?

ginawal

Is there anybody out there who can tell me what happens to unsold sale items? I get a bit frustrated with shops that only reduce things in their sales by only £10 or so, so I was wondering what happens to them after the shop has restocked with new stuff?

Does it go on E-bay? Factory warehouses? TKMaxx? What?

meerustar

Welcome to MSE

Good question, but probably wrong board. You could try the 'shop til you drop' board. This one is for grabbits meaning bargains that you have to get really quickly before they sell out.

HTH

Going_Digital

It really depends on the retailer, there are a number of possibilities.

Many of the big names will have outlet shops where they sell their old stock at reduced prices and they sometimes have sales at the outlet shops to clear stock.

Shops like TK Maxx buy a great deal of old stock from retailers but I hear that they pay on average 75p per garment.

Some retailers will have an agreement that the stock can be sent back to the manufacturer if unsold. Not so much in the clothing and fashion industry but often the case in other areas.

It is just not in the interest of retailers to keep old stock, especially in the fashion industry for two reasons. First space is at a premium and you are better off filling space with new products that will sell than waste space with old stock, even if it is selling it is selling at a reduced profit margin. Second to much out of date stuff makes the shop look out of date and messy putting customers willing to pay for the latest stuff off. As a result it is often considered better to just thow it away than to clutter the shop from a business point of view.

Roger_Rampant

A lot of so-called sales these days aren't really sales at all, and they have just jacked certain prices up beforehand, then cut them back to what they were previously for the "sale", but with a big advertised percentage reduction to draw in the mug punters

Certain organisations are much more prone to that than others, of course

carol9uk

i have seen things in QS that have been in sales

^!£$&

I work for a fashion retailer and most our old stock after a certain period of time gets sent to stores in less affluent areas where they can shift sale crap!
Nothing gets thrown away ever!

DKLS

A fair bit of clothing ends up in rag mills, to end up in markets and on ebay or africa.