What to move first, and why the order matters
Gut feel gets you 40 cents on the dollar. A sequenced plan gets you more.
Most retailers mark down what feels stale — whatever's been on the floor longest or takes up the most space. The Inventory Surgeon approach starts somewhere different: with what has the largest recoverable dollar value.
The order to run it in
- 01
Dead stock — move to liquidation first
Time is working against you.
- 02
Overstock — markdown sequence or bundle
You'll recover more here than in liquidation.
- 03
Slow movers — bundle or promote
Don't mark down aggressively until you've tried bundling.
- 04
Reorder candidates — protect these
Don't let cash freed from liquidation flow back into problem categories.
Mark down, or liquidate?
Mark down in-store when…
The product has an audience and just needs a push.
Move to the Liquidation Marketplace when…
The product has no remaining local demand — and every week it sits is a week of further depreciation.
What this looks like in practice
A boutique carrying $18,000 in slow-moving apparel followed this sequence. Eight weeks later, $11,200 had converted back to working capital — without a store-wide sale.
Illustrative scenario; not a guarantee of results.
Ready to recover what's stuck?
When a product has no local demand left, the Liquidation Marketplace connects you with participating buyers and guides the logistics — so you recover cash instead of watching it depreciate.