Sell excess inventory apparel: the emblem is part of the article and stays on it
Inside a company, a stock overhang is read first as a planning error and a risk to the channel, and only later as money. So this page is not really about how fast we pay. It is about what you can put in front of legal, finance and sales so that the decision reads as a procedure with documents behind it, and not as a clearance run happening behind your own sales channel.
- Mutual NDA signed both ways before a single line of the stock list is exchanged
- Your home market excluded from resale in the purchase agreement, in writing rather than by assurance
- Payment in full before collection, one counterparty, one purchase agreement
- Firm offer within 48 hours of the full stock list. Lots from 1,000 units
Excess reads as a planning error before it reads as money
Unsold stock is rarely discussed internally as an asset. It is discussed as a forecast that was wrong, a buy that went too deep, a range that did not move. The person holding it is usually the person who will be asked to explain it, and no amount of speed on a buyer's side changes that. We are not going to tell you it is normal or that everyone has it. What can change is the shape of the decision.
Goods that resurface at a discount in your own channel are an incident someone has to answer for. A single contracted sale to one counterparty, under a mutual NDA, with your home market excluded from resale in writing and the money landing before anything leaves the warehouse, is a procedure. On the P&L those two look similar. In a meeting they are not remotely the same thing. If what your compliance team is actually asking about is disposal reporting rather than the sale itself, that is set out on our ESPR page, not this one.
What you can put in front of legal, finance and sales
You are not asking three departments to trust a buyer they have never met. You are handing each of them the specific document that answers the question they are going to ask. All of it exists before the stock list moves, not after terms are agreed, which means you can circulate it internally without committing to anything.
The documents themselves, the mutual NDA and the two contract extracts, can be read before you name a brand: the full wording, along with why a direct sale beats a chain of intermediaries and where goods are placed afterwards, sits on our overstock footwear page. How the resale restriction is drafted line by line is set out on our seasonal stock page. Here only one part of it has to travel internally, and it is the part your sales director will ask about first: your home market is excluded in the agreement you sign.
- Mutual NDA. Legal asks: who sees this list, and what binds them? It is signed in both directions before we look at a single line, and it covers the existence of the conversation, not only its contents.
- Resale restriction. Sales asks: where does this turn up? Your own market is excluded in the purchase agreement itself, in writing rather than by assurance, and your legal team can read the obligation before you disclose anything.
- Payment before collection. Finance asks: what is our exposure if the goods leave and the money does not arrive? There is none. Funds clear in full before collection is scheduled, and that sits in the contract rather than in an email.
- One counterparty and one purchase agreement. Legal and finance both ask: who are we actually contracting with? One buying entity signs, pays and collects. No broker chain, no assignment of the agreement to a party you have never seen, no second invoice appearing behind you.
- No public listing of the lot. Sales asks: will our own customers see this on a marketplace? The lot is not listed publicly and not posted to a liquidation platform.
How an apparel lot is read here, and where it differs from footwear
Footwear is a simpler object: a size run, a colourway, a pack. Apparel carries more of the story of how it stopped selling, and that story is the first thing a buyer reads. We look at what is left of the size curve rather than at the headline quantity, because a lot with the middle sizes already gone behaves nothing like one that is still whole.
We look at colour, because a core colourway in a continuing silhouette is a different object from a campaign colour with nothing behind it. And we look at whether the goods are a capsule, a carry-over line or the remainder of a drop, because that decides how far the lot can be placed from your own channel.
- Uniform lots: one style family, complete or near complete curves, consistent packing. Fastest to price and to place.
- Mixed lots: several categories, partial curves, mixed packaging. Not a reason to be turned away. They change the shape of the offer, not the willingness to make one.
- Capsules and collaborations: narrow, colour driven, and the most sensitive to where they reappear. These are the lots where the resale restriction does the most work.
- Carry-over and continuity lines: less sensitive, a wider set of contracted destinations, easier to place well away from your channel.
What the first message costs you internally
An excess decision changes character at one specific point: when it stops being your file and becomes an item other people in the company have an opinion about. This process is built so that point stays yours to choose. The first message carries brand or category, rough volume and a yes to talking. It does not carry a stock list, a manifest, or anything a colleague would have to approve before you send it.
The mutual NDA is signed in both directions before any line of the list moves, and it covers the fact that the conversation is taking place as well as what is said in it, so your own legal team reads it as a draft rather than as a deal. If it stops there, nothing has been disclosed, nothing has been shown around to find an end buyer, and there is no version of your list living anywhere outside your building.
What the next few days look like
You write, a named buyer answers
Three things only: brand or category, rough volume, and that you are open to discussing a sale. No stock list, no documents, no price. A named buyer comes back to you within one business day, and you keep the same contact rather than a ticket number.
Mutual NDA, signed both ways
The NDA is signed before you send a single line. It covers the fact that the conversation is happening as well as its contents, so you can bring legal in early without the sale becoming visible inside or outside your company.
Firm offer, given in the call
You send the full stock list under NDA. Within 48 hours you have a firm offer, spoken to you directly rather than pushed through a form: one firm price for the lot, with the payment sequence and the exclusion of your home market already named, so legal and finance can read the terms while you read the number.
Payment, then collection
One purchase agreement with one counterparty. Payment clears in full before collection is scheduled, we organise collection ourselves, and the exclusion of your home market is part of the agreement you have already signed.
Start with the documents, not with the stock list
Nothing that reaches this form is confidential: brand or category, rough volume, and that you are open to a conversation. The stock list comes after the NDA, not before it. One named buyer, with a face and a direct line, handles the file from the first reply through to collection, and WhatsApp works if that is easier than email. Lots from 1,000 units, mixed or uniform.
Three things get this started: brand or category, rough volume from 1,000 units, and whether you are open to discussing a sale. The phone field is optional and only there if WhatsApp suits you better than email. There is no price field in this form.
Received. Your offer is being prepared.
A buyer comes back to you within one business day, with a firm offer within 48 hours. Everything is handled under NDA.
Common questions
Whose desk does our stock list actually land on?
The named buyer handling your file, and nobody behind them. It is not passed to a desk of traders to canvass for an end buyer and it is not turned into an offer sheet. That is an internal question as much as an external one: if this goes no further, there is no copy of your list in the market that can come back to your own sales team as a rumour, and nothing in your company's records except an NDA that was signed and a conversation that did not proceed.
My management will ask why we are selling at all. What do I put in the file?
The mutual NDA, the resale restriction clause with your home market excluded, the payment-before-collection clause, and a single purchase agreement with one counterparty. That set reads as a controlled disposal, not as a clearance. The internal argument is almost never about the money; it is about whether the decision can be defended a year from now, and those four documents are what makes it defensible.
Our size curve is broken and the packs are no longer whole. Is that a problem?
No. A broken curve changes where the goods can be placed, and therefore the shape of the offer, not whether an offer is made. It is read together with the colourway and the style family: what is left in the middle sizes, whether the packs are intact, and whether the styles still have a natural home well away from your own channel. Uniform lots are simply quicker to price. That is the whole difference.
What if our legal team wants to change the wording?
Then they mark it up. The extracts you read beforehand are illustrative; the binding text is the purchase agreement you sign. Two parts of it we will not trade away, because they are the parts that make the deal defensible on your side as well as ours: your home market stays excluded from resale, and payment clears in full before collection. The rest is negotiated like any other supply contract.
Half the lot is accessories and knitwear that never went into the main range. Does that break the lot?
No. A mixed composition changes how the lot is split for placement, not whether it is bought as one lot, from one seller, under one agreement. Footwear inside an apparel lot is read on its own terms, and if the lot turns out to be mostly footwear our overstock footwear page is the better starting point. The categories we do not take at all are listed on the page about what we do not buy, so you can check that before you write.