Liquidation listings are written in a compressed vocabulary that assumes you already know the trade. Here is what the words actually commit the seller to.
The five that matter most
Overstock
Never owned by a customer. Usually sealed. The cleanest class, and priced accordingly.
Shelf-pull
Removed from display. Physically fine, packaging may be scuffed or opened.
Customer return
Came back from a shopper. Ranges from untouched to genuinely broken.
Mixed
Some of each on one skid. The most common class in this catalog.
Untested
Nobody powered it on. Assume nothing about function until you check.
Salvage
Damaged or incomplete, sold for parts or bulk bundling.
Approximate means approximate
A stated count on a mixed load is a range, and it should be read as one. Loads are built from live surplus, not packed to a fixed bill of materials, so the number moves.
What matters is whether the seller commits to it in a policy. Ours does: more than 10 percent below the stated count is a covered claim. A count with no policy behind it is decoration.
Phrases that should slow you down
Sellers advertising a manifest on request
On mixed customer-return stock, this is usually not true. Ask to see it before you order, not after.
"Retail value $12,000"
Manifest retail and MSRP are marketing numbers. Price against what you can realise on your channel, not against a sticker nobody paid.
"100 percent authentic guaranteed"
Nobody can guarantee that per piece on liquidation goods without opening and authenticating every unit. Treat blanket authenticity guarantees as a red flag rather than reassurance.
"Free shipping over $X"
A threshold means the freight is not really included. Add it before you compare prices.
A listing you can price against
A listing worth buying from tells you the load class, the condition mix, an approximate count, the price with freight included, and what happens if any of that turns out to be wrong.
If you can build a cost-per-sellable-unit estimate from the page without emailing anybody, the seller has done their job.
See what we put on a listing
Class, condition, approximate count and the price, freight included.