PLAYBOOK · 10 MIN READ
How to buy liquidation truckloads
SHORT ANSWER
Price the load from the manifest using your own expected sell prices and sell-through rate, add freight and refurbishment, divide by sellable units to get landed cost, and only bid if that leaves your margin with room to be wrong.
You are buying an average, not a list of units. The winners on the manifest are obvious; the load is decided by the tail.
The goal is not to buy one good load. It is to build a business capable of buying good loads every week.
The steps
- 1Read the manifest properlyCategory mix, condition codes, unit count. Ignore the retail reference column.
- 2Price it yourselfYour expected sell price by model and grade, based on what you have actually sold.
- 3Apply a sell-through rateAssume a share is unsellable or scrap. Your own history is the only honest source for that number.
- 4Add every costFreight, lift gate, labour to unload, parts, testing time, disposal.
- 5Compute landed costTotal cost ÷ sellable units. This is the number you price and record COGS against.
- 6Check cash, not just marginModel how many weeks the cash is tied up. A profitable load you cannot fund is not a deal.
- 7Receive against the manifestCount, photograph and grade on arrival. Claims windows are short.
- 8Buy the portfolio, not the cherriesSuppliers reserve their best loads for buyers who take full assortments consistently.
How it looks in practice
$18,000 load + $1,400 freight + $600 parts = $20,000. 125 sellable units → $160 landed. At an average $340 retail, that is $42,500 of revenue and a 53% gross margin before overhead.
Where operators go wrong
- Dividing by manifest count instead of sellable count.
- Bidding on a category you have never sold.
- Cherry-picking only desirable loads and never becoming a supplier's real customer.
TERMS USED HERE
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LAST UPDATED 2026-09-16 · REVIEWED BY REGISTIX OPERATIONS TEAM