Key takeaways
- The four core grades are new in box, shelf pulls, customer returns and salvage.
- The sellable rate matters more than the grade label — always get it in writing.
- A single grade applied to an entire lot is a warning sign. Real lots are mixed, and a good manifest shows it.
- Calculate your cost against the sellable units only, never the total unit count.
- Tested and processed returns justify a higher price, and are often the better deal.
The four grades
1. New in box
Unopened goods in original factory packaging. They reached the closeout market for commercial reasons only: overproduction, a cancelled order, a packaging or branding change, or the end of a season. There is nothing wrong with the product.
Expected sellable rate: 97–100%. What to check: expiry dates on food, packaging condition after long storage, and whether the box carries labelling in your market's language.
2. Shelf pulls
Goods that sat on a shop floor but were never used. The carton may be tired, corner-crushed or carry a price sticker, but the product inside is new. These usually come from planogram resets, store closures or a range change.
Expected sellable rate: 90–97%. What to check: is the damage to the packaging or the product? Tired packaging is fine in discount retail and unacceptable to some organised retailers.
3. Customer returns
Goods a customer took back to the store for any reason: it did not fit, they changed their mind, they bought an alternative, or there was a genuine fault. In large US retail, most returns are not broken — the customer simply changed their mind.
This is where the decisive question appears: have the returns been processed or not?
- Raw (unprocessed) returns. Exactly as they came back from the store, unopened and untested. Cheapest and riskiest, with sellable rates typically between 60% and 80%.
- Tested and processed returns. Opened, tested and repacked, with the failures pulled out. Dearer per unit, but sellable rates reach 90% and above — and the true cost per sellable unit is often lower.
The calculation that matters: a lot at $10 a unit with a 65% sellable rate costs you $15.40 per unit you can actually sell. A lot at $13 with a 92% rate costs $14.13. The "dearer" lot is the cheaper one.
4. Salvage
Goods caught in an incident: transit damage, water, fire, or an insurance claim. Sold strictly as-is with no performance warranty. Not for an ordinary retailer, but genuinely profitable for a buyer with a repair bench or a parts channel.
Expected sellable rate: highly variable, often under 50%. Only buy it if you know what you will do with the failures.
Quick reference
| Grade | Sellable rate | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| New in box | 97–100% | Any channel, including organised retail |
| Shelf pulls | 90–97% | Discount and independent retail |
| Tested returns | 85–95% | Discount retail and online resale |
| Raw returns | 60–80% | Buyers who can sort and test |
| Salvage | Variable, often under 50% | Repair operations and parts dealers |
These are the ranges commonly used in the trade, not guaranteed figures. The real rate depends on category, source and how much sorting was done — which is why we state it per lot.
Five questions to ask before you buy
- What is the sellable rate for this specific lot, and where does that number come from?
- Have the returns been sorted, or are they exactly as they came back from the store?
- Is the grade stated per line on the manifest, or for the lot as a whole?
- Is the original packaging present, and does that matter for my channel?
- What share of the lot is high-value SKUs? The expensive lines are usually the first to be cherry-picked out.
How we grade
We state condition per line, quote a sellable rate on returns, and send current photographs of the actual stock rather than catalogue images. We do it because we want your second order, and overstating a grade wins one and loses a customer. More in what we supply.
Ask for a real manifest
Tell us your categories and your market, and we will send what is available with a condition grade on every line and a landed price to your port.