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B-Stock Named a 2019 SDCE100 Award Recipient

B-Stock is pleased to announce we’ve been named a SDCE100 winner by Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine for a fifth year running. The award recognizes 100 great supply chain projects between solution providers and their clients that have resulted in supply chain excellence. B-Stock was selected based on our work with a Fortune 500 Warehouse Club Retailer.

Here’s the overview:

Challenge
A Fortune 500 retailer partnered with B-Stock to sell its returns, shelf pulls, and excess inventory via a private B2B liquidation marketplace. Inventory consisted of mixed lots of general merchandise like consumer electronics—headphones, sound bars, portable devices and the like. The challenge was to further increase pricing for these items to offset the costs of shipping, processing, and the warehousing of unsold inventory. To meet this challenge, the goal was to increase buyer engagement that would drive prices upward.

Solution
B-Stock’s team of marketplace experts live in the data. Based on analysis of marketplace pricing trends, the retailer implemented specific sorting strategies to help increase revenue on merchandise that can no longer be sold as ‘new.’ Using historical data and buyer behavior, categories were developed and merchandise was sorted appropriately to increase appeal to the buyers. Categories included:

  • Consumer Electronics: when separated into their own lots, items like game consoles, laptops, printers and other consumer electronics typically generated higher pricing
  • Seasonal Items: timed to travel season, individual lots of luggage sell well
  • General Merchandise: nonperishable food and cleaning products are popular with dollar store and mom & pop store owners that are constantly sourcing for new inventory

Results
After the renewed strategy was implemented, buyer engagement with the retailer’s private marketplace increased, causing recovery rates to jump significantly and allowed the retailer to increase profit margins:

  • The Consumer Electronics lots achieved a 50% increase in recovery (over mixed lot pricing)
  • Seasonal Items, such as luggage lots, generated a 66% increase in recovery over mixed lot pricing
  • The retailer experienced an overall 155% jump in recovery for General Merchandise
  • A lot consisting solely of cleaning products achieved a 244% increase in recovery over a mixed lot

Read Full Case Study

B-Stock was built on the idea that technology and analytics could revolutionize the way organizations sell their returned, excess, and other liquidation inventory into the secondary market. Since inception, B-Stock has enabled hundreds of companies, including nine of the top 10 U.S. retailers, to recover 30%+ more on this inventory.

The 2019 Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100 list is comprised of supply chain solution and service providers that have helped their clients achieve supply chain excellence, including measurable gains in ROI through cost-cutting and increased efficiency within any function of the end-to-end supply chain. Read the full list of winners in the June issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive or visit www.sdcexec.com.

The specific companies identified above do not represent all of Spectrum’s investments, and no assumptions should be made that any investments identified were or will be profitable. View the complete list of our portfolio companies. Spectrum is not responsible for the contents of any third party website linked above, and has not confirmed the accuracy of any information provided therein.