Liquidating

Is liquidating a real business or something where you can only make real money by selling the idea instead of doing it? Well...

Liquidating is where you buy surplus merchandise from businesses that don't want it anymore, only to turn around and sell it to another business or buy it yourself. There is one marketing company in particular that sells a liquidating course that I have actually ordered. It is called The ACL, the Association of Certified Liquidators.

It markets a system and membership that supposedly teaches you to call all these different businesses to find out if they have surplus merchandise. Then you can either buy it yourself or have the ACL help you obtain and liquidate it.

Here is the problem: When are you going to have time to call all of these businesses? When do you work? Probably during business hours, and that is going to be the prime time to call and find out if these places have surplus goods? It isn't exactly something that you do at midnight or whenever you have free time.

Here is what I did: I ordered their course a few years ago. I worked during the evenings and made a few phone calls during the day to businesses that I found in the phone book, a really crappy way to reach people, but the ACL highly recommended it. I ended up finding one business that had extra candy they wanted to unload and couldn't sell. I had them send me a sample and it was really good.

I could have easily sold this candy to someone like K-Mart or Target for $.75 and they could have sold it for $1.00 to $1.50. This business wanted to sell the candy for $.23 per box. I contacted the ACL and they came back with a bid of $.13. I was a little shocked.

I contacted the candy supplier and gave them the quote. They said the candy was easily worth the $.25 bid and said they would look for another buyer. Well, they found one four days later for $.25, and it wasn't me.

I quickly realized how the ACL made their money - by selling their memberships and buying and liquidating when they ran across the deal of a lifetime. Ninety percent of their profits were not made from liquidating as they claimed.

I decided liquidating wasn't for me. Besides, there are much easier ways to make money. I wouldn't waste my time. Liquidating isn't the answer.

Matt Gagnon