How to Choose Your Liquidator

When choosing a liquidator — do your research! You want someone ethical and honest who will partner with you to get the best possible return for inventory, fixtures and other assets. Someone who will relieve the pressure, work with your employees and gain the respect of your customers. You need someone with experience who has done it many times before for the independent storeowner. That's Wingate!

All information is confidential. Want more about us? Fill out the form on our FREE Information Packet page or call us at 1-888-480-7253. Thank you.

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Our industry has attracted some fast and loose operators. I used to know everyone in the business. I could count them on the fingers of one hand. Today, I can pull up websites all day long from people and companies I've never heard of. Some are here today and gone tomorrow. Others are inexperienced and unreliable. One owned a carwash before starting his retail consulting business. Another has a picture of C.C. Brooker, my wive's grandfather, sale held prior to World War II on his website. He claims 40 years experience. He must have worked for C.C., and be 100 years old to have held that sale. Strange, I never heard of him recently.

Who are the others? Where did they come from? Were they storeowners or managers or did they even work in a store? They claim years of 'retail experience' and give the impression of having closed a lot of stores. Make them prove it. Oh, and by the way, 'retail experience' and 'liquidation experience' are about as closely related as 'farming and fishing.'

Some liquidators even offer guarantees! The liquidator's sales pitch will make it sound great, but when it is put into context with the rest of the contract, one will find it protects the liquidator and penalizes the store owner. In this business, there are no guarantees other than to purchase the store and pay for it in advance.

Some work on a percentage and claim that makes them work harder. Untrue, they are busy watching the cash register and the back door making sure everything is rung up and nothing is sold out the back door or taken home. If a buyer for the store is found, they expect to get paid even though they had nothing to do with finding the buyer. Midway through the sale when volume has dropped off, they are ready to make a bulk sale and move on to the next high paying percentage job. They won't spend the time and effort to squeeze every dollar possible out of the sale. Others open an escrow account that all receipts are to be deposited in. Some bring in their own high pressure sales crew which increases overhead and alienates loyal customers. There seems to be no end to different liquidation schemes. Keep it simle, use Wingate!

For an in-depth explanation of all the different types of liquidators and misleading contracts some of them offer, fill out the form above. We will send my book What Every Store Owner Should Know About Closing A Store. The chapter Choosing Your Liquidator will explain the different sale plans and the deceptive contracts used to entice store owners. We'll also send a packet of information about us and the service we provide.

With Wingate, you retain complete control of the store and the receipts from the sale. After all, it's your store and your money. It's our job to help you recover more of it!